QAIM, Iraq (AP) At least 17 bodies in civilian clothes were
found scattered near a town close to the Syrian border that is
considered an insurgent hotbed, with 11 shot in the head and
another beheaded, witnesses said Friday.
The 11 who were shot in the head had their hands tied behind
their backs, according to the witnesses, which included a reporter
for The Associated Press. They were found near a small hamlet
called Jabab, about 19 miles east of Qaim. It was unclear when they
were killed.
The Interior Ministry also confirmed that another six bodies
were found near Qaim outside the village of Fosfat. Interior
ministry Maj. Falah al-Mahamdawi said the six men were found
Thursday. They all had civilian ID cards.
It was unclear if the bodies had any connection to a group of
about 20 Iraqi soldiers that have been missing from the Qaim area
since late Tuesday.
Qaim, about 200 miles west of Baghdad, has been the scene of
numerous U.S. military and Iraqi army operations. U.S. Marines
carried out two major operations in the area last month, with a
total of 11 Marines being killed in the campaigns.
Al-Qaida in Iraq, the terror group led by Jordanian-born
Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed in an Internet posting that it had
abducted a total of 36 Iraqi soldiers in western Iraq on Wednesday.
The posting, on a Web site known to carry militant statements,
could not be verified independently.
''A group of the infidel guards was arrested and investigated
Wednesday,'' it said.
The group added that the men confessed their crimes ''against
Sunnis and their loyalty to crusaders.'' To release them, it gave
the government of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari a day to set
free ''Muslim women'' held in Iraqi prisons. It did not elaborate.
Capt. Ahmed Hamid said the soldiers disappeared Tuesday after
leaving an Iraqi army base in two minibuses from Akashat, a village
near the Syrian border about 70 miles southwest of Qaim.
Hamid, contacted by telephone at an Iraqi military base in Qaim,
said the soldiers were wearing civilian clothes and traveling to
Baghdad for a vacation.
Elsewhere, a U.S. soldier died Thursday of non-combat injuries
near Tuz Khormato, about 130 miles north of Baghdad, the military
said.
Five other U.S. soldiers were wounded Thursday when a suicide
car bomber attacked their convoy between Beiji and Tikrit, 80 miles
north of Baghdad, but none of the injuries was life-threatening,
the military said.
At least 1,684 U.S. military members have died since the Iraq
war began in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.
In southern Basra, gunmen killed the dean of the city's police
academy, Col. Karim al-Daraji, police said.
The European Commission, meanwhile, said Friday it plans to have
a delegation in Baghdad within a month, re-establishing a permanent
mission for the first time since before the 2003 Iraq war.
Briefing reporters after returning from the EU's first
high-level visit to Iraq since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, EU
External Relations Commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said the
mission will be small but would grow as the security situation
permits.
''The security situation is difficult, and that's also the
reason why we haven't opened a mission yet,'' she said. ''But we
need a delegation there, with all the possible care given to
security.''
The EU wanted to appoint a charge d'affaires who could engage in
a political dialogue with government authorities, she said. The EU
wants the delegation located in the Green Zone, the security
enclave in the center of Baghdad that also houses the U.S. Embassy.
The EU delegation's one-day visit to Baghdad on Thursday was to
prepare for a major donors' conference in Brussels, Belgium, later
this month.
