Sectarian crisis in Iraq deepens

THE bodies of 18 men - bound, blindfolded and strangled - were found dumped in Iraq yesterday, apparent victims of the sectarian turmoil gripping Iraq that threatens the formation of a coalition government.

Later yesterday, gunmen wearing the uniform of Iraqi police commandos seized about 50 employees from the offices of a security company, police sources said. An Interior Ministry source said he was unaware of any official police operation in the area.

Iraq's Shi'ite interior minister, a hate figure for many Sunnis who accuse him of condoning death squads, escaped an apparent assassination attempt when a roadside bomb blasted his convoy. Minister Bayan Jabor, however, was not in his car.

The bombing of an important Shi'ite shrine in Samarra on February 22 has pitched Iraq toward civil war, unleashing reprisal sectarian killings and deepening the mutual suspicion between the country's majority Shi'ite Muslims and minority Sunnis.

The violence has complicated faltering efforts to form a government of national unity three months after elections. Iraqi leaders, struggling to agree on who should hold the top posts, are due to meet President Jalal Talabani today to decide on a way forward. Parliament is supposed to meet by Sunday.

The dumping of bodies bearing signs of torture, and killed execution-style, is a feature of the violence. The 18 bodies discovered by US troops in western Baghdad late on Tuesday had all been garrotted and had their hands bound with plastic ties, police and hospital officials said.

The victims, a mixture of middle-aged and young men in civilian clothes, carried no identifying papers, police said.

The US military said a patrol found the bodies after receiving reports of a suspicious vehicle on the side of the road. Iraqi police said the bodies were dumped near the Amriya district, a stronghold of Sunni insurgent groups.

The US ambassador conceded yesterday Iraq could still descend into civil war, saying Americans "opened Pandora's Box" when they toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003 and another incident like that in Samarra could push it to the brink of war again.

This conflicts sharply with the claims of US Defence Secretary Donals Rumsfeld, who claimed the media were exaggerating and overstating the violence there.

Earlier, UN secretary-general Kofi Annan said US-led coalition forces and Iraq's authorities may be violating international law by arbitrarily detaining thousands of people. The report, which studied the situation in Iraq over the last three months, said Iraq's prison system remains a major concern.

While Mr Annan praised Iraq's December elections, he also noted a rise in sectarian strife and said attacks against places of worship were higher than ever.

Baghdad's Forensic Institute has received 787 bodies, 479 of which had gunshot wounds, since December.