Iraqi troops find mass grave with 12 bodies

Latest discovery in ex-Qaeda area

An oil facility guard's body was taken from a morgue yesterday in Kirkuk after four victims were found north of Baghdad. (Emad Matti/associated press)

BAGHDAD - Iraqi troops unearthed a mass grave with the remains of 12 people including a paramedic who disappeared more than a year ago, officials said yesterday, the latest grisly discovery in a former stronghold of Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Morgue workers wearing masks to protect from the stench of decomposing bodies dug through bags of bones and tattered clothes as they sought clues to the identities of those killed.

More than 100 bodies, including women and children, have turned up since October in the remote desert terrain surrounding Lake Tharthar, a manmade body of water straddling the predominantly Sunni provinces of Anbar and Salahuddin, about 60 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Most of the victims have no IDs, but officials have said they were probably killed by Al Qaeda in Iraq and other insurgents.

The US military has claimed significant progress since last summer in forcing Al Qaeda in Iraq out of Anbar Province with the help of Sunni tribal leaders and local officials. Iraqis forces have taken advantage of these recent security gains to step up patrols in areas previously considered no-go zones, but Lake Tharthar has remained one of the hardest areas to control.

Two of the bodies found Sunday were beheaded, according to an official at Fallujah General Hospital, where the remains were taken. Hospital officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to release details of the discovery, said some appeared to have been killed as recently as four months ago, while other deaths dated to 18 months ago.

A Health Ministry card that belonged to the missing paramedic provided a rare solid identity clue.

Two other mass graves were found near the lake last month - one containing 40 bodies and another with 29. Twenty-five other bodies were found in October, and authorities said the victims apparently died within the previous three months.

Authorities have also found mass graves in other parts of the country where violence has decreased. Seventeen corpses were unearthed last month at a site near Baqubah, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

At least 20 people were killed or found dead yesterday, including the mutilated bodies of four oil facility guards who were kidnapped the day before, police said. Colonel Khali al-Zubaie, a spokesman for the Iraqi Army in Kirkuk, said a fifth man who disappeared with the guards remained missing.

US troops killed one Iraqi yesterday north of Baghdad after opening fire at a vehicle they said failed to stop at a checkpoint following an operation targeting Al Qaeda in Iraq, the military said.

In Baghdad, gunmen in two cars fired on a Sunni Interior Ministry aide, Major General Fauzi Hussein Muhammed, as he returned home, killing him and wounding his driver, police said.