110 bullet-riddled bodies found in Baghdad
Pastor Dale Morgan
110 bullet-riddled bodies found in Baghdad*
POSTED: 0228 GMT (1028 HKT), October 11, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi security forces have found 110 bodies
dumped across the capital in the past two days, all killed in a manner
authorities attribute to Sunni-Shiite sectarian strife.
Baghdad police said 60 bullet-riddled bodies were found around Baghdad
between Monday morning and Tuesday morning, and another 50 were found
later in the day Tuesday.
Some of the bodies showed signs of torture and had their hands and feet
bound. The bodies could not be immediately identified. (Watch how
violent the first part of October has been for Iraq -- 1:01 Video)
Elsewhere in Iraq, 15 people were killed in attacks in or near Baghdad,
and 11 insurgents were slain by coalition and Iraqi troops in the
southern city of Diwaniya.
A string of deadly attacks
Ten civilians were killed on Tuesday when a bomb was detonated under a
car in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, emergency police said.
The blast -- which occurred at 1 p.m. -- wounded four other people.
The bombing was near the Hatem Al-Sa'adoun Mosque. Police said the
apparent target was a bakery.
In another incident in the same neighborhood, a roadside bomb targeting
a U.S.-Iraqi patrol killed a policeman and wounded four others.
In the mainly Sunni Seleikh neighborhood of northern Baghdad, a suicide
car bomber slammed into an Iraqi army checkpoint, killing two Iraqi
soldiers and wounding seven, police said.
And in Rashid, a town about 16 miles (25 kilometers) south of the
capital, a roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi police patrol, killing
two officers and wounding three others, police said.
Farther south in the Shiite-dominated city of Diwaniya, coalition and
Iraqi forces clashed with insurgents near the Al Qaim Mosque on Monday
evening, leaving 11 insurgents dead, a U.S. military statement said.
The gun battle occurred when a joint coalition and Iraqi unit on routine
patrol came under fire while speaking with police at a checkpoint near
the mosque.
The enemy fighters, which the military labeled as terrorists, were
dressed as Iraqi police officers, and a pickup truck with Iraqi police
markings was heavily damaged, the military said.
Diwaniya -- located in the southern province of Qadisiya -- has a
dominant Shiite presence, and it has been the scene of recent
hostilities between coalition forces and the Mehdi Army militia loyal to
anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
On Saturday night, a raid by the U.S. military left 30 insurgents from
the Mehdi Army militia dead; in late August, a pitched battle between
his fighters and government troops left more than 60 people dead.
Hussein ejected
Saddam Hussein was ejected again in a rowdy session of his trial in
Baghdad for alleged crimes during the 1988 Anfal campaign in the Kurdish
region. He was removed from the court after getting into a heated
argument with chief judge Mohammad Orabi Majeed al-Khalefa.
The confrontation began after Hussein protested al-Khalefa's refusal to
let two other defendants cross-examine a witness. After arguing with the
judge, Hussein was ordered out of the courtroom. (Full story)
Other developments
# Four more U.S. troops have died in Iraq, according to U.S. military
statements issued Tuesday. Three U.S. Marines were killed Monday in
fighting in Anbar province. And a U.S. soldier died after a bombing
while on patrol north of Tikrit on Sunday. Since the start of the war,
the U.S. military has suffered 2,742 fatalities in Iraq. Seven American
civilian contractors of the military also have died in the conflict.
# A fire at an ammunition depot late Tuesday sparked a series of
powerful explosions and a massive fire at a small U.S. base in southern
Baghdad, the U.S. military said. The blasts, some of which shook
buildings at least four miles away, continued for more than an hour. The
cause of the fire at Forward Operating Base Falcon was not yet known,
officials said. No casualties were immediately reported, according to
Iraqi police and the U.S. military. (Watch the blasts light up Baghdad
-- 3:36 Video )
# An Iraqi international soccer referee was released unharmed Tuesday
morning after being kidnapped over the weekend, an official with the
Iraqi Olympic Committee said. No ransom was paid. Gunmen abducted Hazim
Hussein on Sunday as he left the Iraqi Federation of Football office in
northwestern Baghdad, the official said.
CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq and Peter Morris contributed to this report.