Iraqi govt vows crackdown as more bodies found

At least eight Iraqis were found shot near a Baghdad dam and a slain Iraqi Kurd was left in a garbage dump in northern Iraq, police said today, raising the number of bodies recovered in the past 48 hours to 45.

The government vowed to find those responsible, saying insurgents were seeking to exploit sectarian rivalries to stir more bloodshed.

Elsewhere, mortar barrages, bombings and drive-by shootings killed at least 19 Iraqis, including nine soldiers who died when two car bombs exploded in quick succession at a crowded Baghdad market.

Anti-US cleric Muqtada al-Sadr also came out of hiding today for the first time since his fighters clashed with American forces in Najaf and Baghdad in August, delivering a fiery speech demanding that coalition forces leave Iraq and that Saddam Hussein be punished.

Interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari, meanwhile, paid a surprise visit to the home of Iraq’s top Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in the holy city of Najaf, al-Sistani aide Maitham Faysal said. It was the leader’s first meeting with al-Sistani since the new government was formed.

Batches of bodies, many blindfolded and bound, were found in various areas over the weekend, from a garbage-strewn vacant lot in Baghdad’s Sadr City slum to a Latifiyah chicken farm south of the capital in a region dubbed the Triangle of Death.

The spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari condemned the killings and said security forces were determined to catch those responsible.

The attacks “aim to create sectarian fighting in the country because such clashes could bring more recruits to (militant) groups,” spokesman Laith Kuba said. “The government is aware of that and will not let this plan succeed.”

Few details were available on the motives behind the killings. Insurgents regularly target Iraqi security forces, government officials and others deemed to be collaborating with US-led forces in the country. Others are kidnapped and killed in attempts to extort ransom. But there have also been a stream of retaliatory attacks between armed Sunni and Shiite groups.

Most of the bodies were found over the weekend, including two Iraqi journalists found in their car on a road south of Baghdad, 10 soldiers dumped in the battleground city of Ramadi, two truck drivers lying with nine other bodies in the chicken farm anda judge found nearby. Seven others were discovered elsewhere in the Latifiyah area, about 20 miles south of the capital.

Many of the victims had been blindfolded, bound and shot multiple times in the head. Most – including 13 found in Sadr City – had no documents to identify them.

Another body was found today, this time an Iraqi Kurd shot in the head and chest and left in a rubbish dump in Kirkuk. The victim, identified by police as Najat Saadoun, had his hands tied behind his back.

At least three more bodies, who police said had been shot in the head, were brought into a Baghdad hospital. Police said they were among six bodies found dumped near a dam in the capital’s Shiite-dominated eastern Shaab neighbourhood. Two other victims were found alive, but died in hospital later.

An influential association of Sunni Muslim clerics identified the victims as Sunnis, and said the two survivors told relatives they were seized by members of the Shiite-dominated government’s own security forces and shot during a series of raids.

Defence Minister Saadoun al-Duleimi denied the accusation, saying the killings were carried out by “terrorists” wearing military uniforms.

The grisly finds were a new twist in an endless stream of violence, with more than 460 people killed in a wave of bombings and ambushes since the April 28 announcement of the new Iraqi government.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice acknowledged the violence but urged patience as she met with Iraq’s new leaders yesterday during a surprise trip meant to support the Iraqi government.

“Yes, the levels of violence are still very high and it’s in large part because the advent of the car bomb makes it possible with relatively few people to do great damage, and that is something that has to be addressed,” Rice said.

US and Iraqi forces detained another 52 suspected militants in raids in Baghdad, Mosul and Kirkuk.

Iraqi forces also captured car bomb maker Salim Youssef Khafif Hussein in Mosul, the government said today.

Hussein, also known as Agha Abu Dawoud, is said to have close links with Abu Talha, the head of operations in Mosul for Iraq’s most-wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the statement said. Hussein “supervised and facilitated” most of the car bomb attacks in Mosul, the statement said.

Al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric who is wanted in the 2003 assassination of another cleric, held a press conference in Najaf.

“I demand several things, including punishing Saddam and calling on the Iraqi government, religious movements and political factions to work hard to kick out the occupier,” al-Sadr said. “I want the immediate withdrawal of the occupation forces.”

In violence today, a car bomb exploded near a crowded southern Baghdad market, causing numerous civilian casualties, police said. Minutes later, another car bomb exploded, targeting soldiers who responded to the initial blast. At least nine soldiers were killed and five others wounded, police said.

A roadside bomb killed four more Iraqi soldiers as they raced to a fire station that had come under mortar fire in Khan Bani Saad, 20 miles north-east of Baghdad, police Col Mudafar Mohammed said. Four other people were wounded in the attack.

Two Iraqis were killed and four wounded in Baghdad’s south-western Saydiya district when another roadside bomb exploded as an Iraqi army convoy passed, said police Lt Hussein Alwan.

An Iraqi army brigadier general also survived an ambush attempt by eight gunmen who attacked his convoy as it entered a traffic intersection in the same district, an Interior Ministry spokesman said. Soldiers returned fire, killing four gunmen and found ammunition and weapons in the cars, while the remaining militants fled on foot, the spokesman added.

At least three mortar rounds slammed into different parts of the capital, including one that hit the Engineering College of Mustansiriyah University, killing two people and wounding 12, the Interior Ministry said.

Gunmen also killed Baghdad-based policeman Razzaq Ubaid Hinaidi and his wife in a drive-by shooting late last night near the village of Aalgaya, 60 miles south of the capital, said Capt Muthana Khalid Ali. The couple’s two children were seriously wounded in the attack.