Fifty bodies pulled from Tigris river

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story...464288,00.html

Agencies
Wednesday April 20, 2005

The bodies of 69 people, apparently victims of separate insurgent attacks, were discovered in two locations in Iraq today.


The Iraqi president, Jalal Talabani, reported that the bodies of 50 people had been dragged from the Tigris river south of Baghdad. They are believed to be hostages held by insurgents in Madaen, a town south of Baghdad, since earlier this week.

"More than 50 bodies have been brought out from the Tigris, and we have the full names of those who were killed and those criminals who committed these crimes," Mr Talabani told reporters. "We will give you details in the coming days ... terrorists committed crimes there."

<!-- This site/section combo is not set up to show MPU's -->Mr Talabani gave no details about when or where the victims were abducted or found, saying only that the interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, would deal with the matter. However, he provided the information in response to a question about the search for hostages reportedly seized from the Madaen region, south of Baghdad.

Shia leaders and government officials claimed last week that Sunni militants had abducted as many as 100 Shia residents from the area, but when Iraqi forces moved into Madaen, they found no captives. Later, Shia officials said that dozens of bodies had been found in the Tigris river south of Madaen, but residents and police in the area who spoke to the Reuters news agency said they had not seen any bodies.

Today Mr Talabani insisted: "It is not true that there were no hostages. There were, but they were killed and they threw the bodies into the Tigris."

Meanwhile, residents said they had found the bullet-ridden bodies of 19 Iraqi men in a soccer stadium in Haditha, a town 140 miles north of Baghad.

Usama Rauf and Ousama Halim, both taxi drivers, said they heard gunshots and rushed to the stadium where they saw the bodies lined up against a bloodstained wall. An Iraqi reporter and other residents counted 19 bodies and said all of them appeared to have been shot.

Residents said they believed the victims, all men in civilian clothes, were soldiers abducted by insurgents as they headed home for tomorrow's holiday marking the birthday of the prophet Muhammad.

Walid al-Hadithi, a doctor in the town's hospital, told Reuters that the murders followed clashes in the area between national guardsmen, US troops and rebels. US forces said they were investigating, and Iraqi military officials said they had no immediate information.

[leo_uk]

And we took Sadam out because he killed people!