The Iraqi Defense Ministry yesterday identified 19 bullet-riddled bodies found in a stadium northwest of the capital as fishermen, not soldiers as initially rumored.
Investigations indicated the men had come from the southern Diwaniya and Najaf provinces to fish in Tharthar lake when they were captured by insurgents and taken to the stadium at nearby Haditha, said Saleh Sarhan, the ministry's chief spokesman. Haditha is 220km northwest of Baghdad.
He did not say how the victims had been identified or why they might have been captured.
On Wednesday, Haditha residents heard gunshots and rushed to the stadium, where they said they found the bodies slumped against a bloodstained wall. All appeared to have been gunned down, witnesses said.
Residents initially said they believed the victims were soldiers kidnapped by insurgents as they headed home for a holiday marking the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad. But residents and an Iraqi reporter saw no military identification on the bodies.
Meanwhile, President Jalal Talabani said more than 50 corpses had been identified after being pulled from the Tigris river on Wednesday.
"We have the full names of those who were killed and those criminals who committed these crimes," he said.
He did not specify the location or timing while answering questions about a search for hostages allegedly seized last week in Madaen, 23km south of Baghdad.
An unnamed police official told reporters that 57 decomposing bodies of men, women and children were found between al-Wahda and al-Hafriya, downriver from Madaen.
He said police had photographed and buried the bodies outside the town of Suwayrah.
The claim deepened the mystery over what happened at Madaen. Shiite politicians said last weekend that Sunni gunmen had taken dozens of civilians and threatened to kill them if other Shiites did not leave. But when Iraqi security forces entered Madaen they found no hostages but plenty of residents saying the story was untrue.
RSS