14 bodies found by Iraqi police

Iraqi police have found 14 unidentified bodies at several locations near a farming town south of Baghdad.

“All the bodies are in civilian clothes and have no identification documents,” said Lt. Adnan Abdullah of the city police in Mahmoudiya, about 20 miles south of the Iraqi capital.

Iraqi soldiers and police collected the bodies today and took them to the local morgue, Abdullah said. All had been shot to death, he said.

The killings in the largely Sunni area are likely to heighten sectarian tensions at a time when Sunnis and Shiites have accused each another of involvement in “death squad” assassinations.

Last month, police found the bodies of 36 men in a remote area near the Iranian border. Sunni community leaders claimed the victims had been arrested in a Baghdad neighbourhood by the Shiite-led security forces.

The Interior Ministry, which is run by members of the Shiite group Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, has denied similar accusations in the past saying anyone can obtain a police uniform.