35 corpses found in Iraq

2005-03-09 14:19

Qaim - Police said on Wednesday they found 35 bodies in two different places in Iraq, some shot to death, the others beheaded.

Twenty of the corpses were found late on Tuesday near Rumana, a village about 20km east of the western city of Qaim, near the Syrian border, police Captain Muzahim al-Karbouli said.

Each of the bodies was riddled with bullets and found wearing civilian clothes, al-Karbouli said. The dead included one woman, but their identities were not known, he said.

Al-Karbouli said the victims appeared to have been killed several days earlier. They had not been died up or beheaded, as other victims have in Iraq.

A separate discovery was made on Tuesday south of Baghdad in Latifiya, where 15 headless bodies were found by Iraqi troops.

The decapitated corpses were found inside an abandoned base of the former Iraqi army, Defence Ministry Captain Sabah Yassin said. The bodies included 10 men, three women and two children.

Yassin said the bodies had no identification on them. But some of the dead men were thought to have been part of a group of Iraqi soldiers who were kidnapped by insurgents in the area two weeks ago, Yassin said.

- AP