WARSAW, Aug 21 (AFP) - Polish troops serving with the international force in Iraq seized large quantities of weapons Saturday in the city of Kerbala, a military spokesman said, quoted by the Polish news agency PAP.
"The soldiers stopped a van during a routine street patrol," Krzysztof Plazuk, a spokesman for the Polish-commanded 6,500-man multinational division in the region, said.
Poland commands one of the four zones in Iraq and has sent 2,500 troops.
"The driver and some other men ran away from the vehicle which was carrying two rocket-launchers, five anti-tank rounds, 80 82-millimetre mortar shells, six 62-millimetre mortar shells, five missiles and three Kalashnikov rifles."
The soldiers could not fire at the escaping men because of the presence in the streets of numerous civilians.
Spokesmen for the division said the arsenal would have enabled insurgents to attack its bases for at least a week.
Earlier in the day one Polish soldier was killed and six others wounded when a booby-trapped car exploded near Hilla in the south of the country.
Within the last few days Polish troops have come under sustained attack. On Wednesday a dozen mortar shells were fired at the Polish base at Babylon in south-central Iraq. It was the most intense attack on the base in the year that the Poles have been manning it and left seven men injured.
The following day two Polish soldiers were killed and five injured in a vehicle accident caused by gunfire.
In all 14 Poles -- 10 soldiers and four civilians -- have died since the invasion of Iraq in March last year.
Defence Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski said Saturday he planned to go Iraq to "get an idea of the situation" there. The visit should take place shortly but no date has been set.