Twenty-one bodies found in Iraqi desert

Insurgents in western Iraq killed five US Marines and sliced the heads off three Iraqis, part of a group of 21 men whose bodies were found dumped in the desert near the Syrian border after being gagged and shot.

The death of the Marines in a roadside bomb attack and brutal slaying of the 21 Iraqis, believed to be part of a group of missing soldiers, came as politicians seeking a political solution to the insurgency once again appeared bitterly divided over a promise to give Sunni Arabs a bigger say in charting Iraq’s future.