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Decomposed bodies found
27/10/2007 21:16 - (SA)
Baghdad - Iraqi troops found 17 decomposed bodies of unidentified men near the restive city of Baquba in a grim reminder of sustained sectarian bloodletting, as 12 other people were killed in the country on Saturday.
Colonel Arshad al-Tamimi said the bodies were found in an open area five kilometres west of Baquba, the capital of the province of Diyala located northeast of Baghdad.
Doctor Ahmad Fuhad of Baquba General Hospital confirmed the bodies were brought to the medical facility and were in a decomposed state, adding it was difficult to ascertain how the men were killed.
The discovery is a fresh reminder of the brutal sectarian strife that still continues in Iraq despite military crackdowns in flashpoint areas.
A large number of such bodies used to crop up regularly on the streets of Baghdad and other violent cities until a few months back, most of them shooting victims of sectarian attacks.
But recently the number of such corpses had fallen drastically and Saturday's find was one of the largest in months.
In another incident gunmen wearing military uniforms abducted the police chief of the town of Muqdadiyah in Diyala and his seven bodyguards, security officials said.
Convoy ambushed
The convoy of Colonel Amer Nsaif was ambushed near the village of Abu Saidr on Friday by armed men, they told AFP.
"He was returning to Muqdadiyah from Baghdad yesterday when he was kidnapped near Abu Saidr close to Baquba," a security official said.
He said 13 Iraqi soldiers who had been manning a checkpoint near Abu Saidr where the ambush occurred had been detained.
Insurgents also killed 12 people in Iraq on Saturday, including five in Diyala.
Three people died in mortar attacks and two in a roadside bombing in the province, police said.
Five other people, including a group of truck drivers, were killed when a series of roadside bombs struck their convoy south of the northern Iraqi oil city of Kirkuk, police said. Two others died in northern Iraq, police added.
Meanwhile, US forces seized a Shi'ite fighter and shot dead two others on Saturday, accusing them of ignoring cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's order to freeze militia's activities.
Ties with an Iranian intelligence cell
The US military said its troops launched an early morning operation in the village of Fawwaliyah in Diyala to capture the militant.
"The operation was targeting a splinter group leader, who was not honouring Moqtada al-Sadr's pledge to cease attacks and who was involved in weapons procurement, kidnapping and explosively-formed penetrator (EFP) attacks," the military said in a statement.
Without revealing the identity of the militant, the statement said he had ties with an Iranian intelligence cell.
The military has regularly charged that Iraqi extremists have formed special cells that are trained and supplied by Iranian groups, including the deadly EFPs.
These fist-sized bombs that cut through heavily armoured vehicles have killed more than 200 soldiers in Iraq, the US military says.
During Saturday's operation the target of the raid surrendered but two other men were killed after they failed to heed warning shots, the military said.
Another 14 suspected militants were also detained at the site.
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