Iraqi police found 60 bodies dumped across Baghdad in the 24 hours until Tuesday morning, all apparent victims of sectarian death squads, an Interior Ministry official said.
The United States military also said Iraqi and US forces had killed 11 militants, most dressed as Iraqi police officers, in fresh clashes in the southern Shi’ite city of Diwaniya. Thirty Shi’ite militiamen were also reported killed there in fighting on Sunday.
Most of the victims of the deaths quads who roam Baghdad at will, torturing and killing, had been shot in the head execution-style. Many bore signs of torture, the Interior Ministry official said.
Iraq has been gripped by sectarian bloodletting since the bombing of a revered Shi’ite shrine in February. The United Nations estimates 100 Iraqis die every day in violence that Iraqi and US officials fear could descend into civil war.
In the most high-profile killing in recent weeks, gunmen in camouflage uniform on Monday shot dead the brother of Iraq’s Sunni Vice-President, Tareq al-Hashemi. He was the third of al-Hashemi’s siblings to be killed since April.
The killings in the capital come despite a major security sweep by US and Iraqi troops first launched in June. US officials had predicted a surge in violence during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which began in late September.
”It is clearly tough at the moment,” US military spokesperson Major General William Caldwell said on Monday, while forecasting a continued rise in violence for the remainder of Ramadan.
The US military said in a statement 11 ”terrorists” were killed after a routine joint US-Iraqi patrol came under machinegun, grenade and rocket-propelled grenade fire from and around the Shi’ite al-Qaim Mosque in Diwaniya on Monday night.
It said six of those killed were dressed as Iraqi police officers. But hospital officials in the town said only two people were wounded in the violence, a man and a woman.
Residents said US-led forces had attempted to capture the deputy head of the local office of radical Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose Mehdi Army militia in the town battled Iraqi troops in August, killing 20 soldiers.
They said Khudair al-Ansari had been in the mosque when it was surrounded by US troops but had managed to escape.
”We made the American operation fail. The target was one of our sons but we managed to free him from the hands of the Americans,” said Haider Hamza, a Sadrist and head of the Diwaniya security committee.
Death squads
The 60 bodies found in Baghdad were all men, some of whom had been blindfolded or bound, said the Interior Ministry official, who did not want to be named. Signs of torture included bruising, often a sign of beating, and broken limbs.
”The signs of torture shows they were killed for sectarian or political motives,” the official said.
He said 50 to 60 bodies were found on average every day in Baghdad, most unidentified and most shot execution style.
Sectarian death squads, often wearing military or police uniforms, roam the city, pulling people from their vehicles or homes and killing them based on their religious affiliation.
Twelve of the 60 bodies were dumped in districts close to Sadr City, a stronghold of the Mehdi Army, which has been blamed by Sunni leaders for many of the killings.
The militia denies the charge, but US officials say rogue militia leaders, not under the control of Sadr, are operating with their own violent agenda.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, under increasing pressure from Washington, has vowed to disband the militias, but many critics accuse him of lacking the political will, since several of the most powerful are tied to parties within his government. — Reuters