Baghdad Police Find 65 Bodies in 24 Hours
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
March 14, 2006
Filed at 5:15 a.m. ET
nytimes.com
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Police found at least 65 bodies in Baghdad in the past 24 hours, including 15 men bound and shot in an abandoned minibus, in a gruesome wave of apparent sectarian reprisal attacks, officials said Tuesday.
The timing of the killings appeared related to the car bomb and mortar attacks in the Shiite slum of Sadr City in east Baghdad on Sunday in which 58 people died and more than 200 were wounded.
The sectarian violence marked the second wave of mass killings in Iraq since Feb. 22, when bombers destroyed an important Shiite Muslim shrine in Samarra, north of the capital.
The minibus was found on the main road between two mostly Sunni neighborhoods in west Baghdad, not far from where another minibus containing 18 bodies was discovered last week.
The bodies of at least 50 more men were found discarded in various parts of the capital, police said. All had been shot and many also had their hands and feet tied.
The bodies were found in both Sunni and Shiite areas, many of them among Baghdad's most dangerous neighborhoods, police said.
A number of them were recovered from Sadr City, where two car bombs and four mortar rounds shattered shops and market stalls at nightfall Sunday, killing at least 58 people and injuring more than 200 as residents shopped for food for their evening meals.
Scorched pavement, destroyed shops and burned out cars awaited Shiite residents emerging from their homes Monday in Sadr City.
The scene, although gruesome, was not what many had feared: That the deadly explosions the previous night would ignite all-out civil war.
Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's refused to be provoked. With thousands of his Mahdi Army militiamen ready to fight, the anti-American leader called for calm and national unity.
* Copyright 2006 The Associated Press |
