(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-11-06 22:49

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week that Iran had made such assurances to the Iraqi government.

"It's our best judgment that these particular EFPs ... in recent large cache finds do not appear to have arrived here in Iraq after those pledges were made," Rear Adm. Gregory Smith, director of the Multi-National Force-Iraq's communications division, told reporters Tuesday.

Among the weapons Washington has accused Iran of supplying to Iraqi insurgents are EFPs, or explosively formed projectiles. They fire a slug of molten metal capable of penetrating even the most heavily armored military vehicles, and thus are more deadly than other roadside bombs.

The No. 2 US commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno, said last week that there had been a sharp decline in the number of EFPs found in Iraq in the last three months. At the time, he and Gates both said it was too early to tell whether the trend would hold, and whether it could be attributed to action by Iranian authorities. Iran publicly denies that it has sent weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq.

Also Tuesday, the US military said Iraqi troops had discovered 22 bodies in a mass grave northwest of Baghdad over the weekend. The bodies were found during a joint operation Saturday. It was the second mass grave found in the area in less than a month.

After the discovery, US and Iraqi forces launched an operation Sunday, including ground raids and air assaults targeting al-Qaida in the area, the US statement said.

About 30 suspects were detained, it said. Two car bomb facilities and a number of weapons caches also were found, it added.

Iraqi officials were trying to identify the bodies and notify families.

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