Iraqi police yesterday announced the discovery of six more bodies in Baghdad, most of them tortured before being executed, raising the spectre of sectarian violence.
The grim find came a day after police said 20 decomposed cadavers had been unearthed outside the capital and as Iraq and France celebrated the release of a French journalist and her Iraqi fixer after a five-month hostage ordeal.
Three bodies, including those of two tortured policemen brothers, were found in eastern Baghdad, police said yesterday, and another three unidentified, blindfolded and tortured bodies in the north of the capital.
PHOTO: AFP
Police said on Sunday they had found the decomposed bodies of 20 executed men near Nahrawan, southeast of the capital, who had also been tortured before dying.
The discovery led Iraq's main Sunni clerical organization, the Committee of Muslim Scholars, to claim the dead were Sunni civilians, after charging last month that a former Shiite militia had carried out tit-for-tat killings of Sunnis.
Shiites have been a regular target of the relentless Sunni insurgency that killed almost 700 people last month. The Committee accused a Shiite militia of killing Sunnis, amid a spate of attacks between the two communities, including some targeting religious leaders.
"It is the Badr Organization which is responsible for these killings. I take responsibility for what I am saying," said Committee spokesman Hareth al-Dhari.
The Badr Organization replaced the officially disbanded militia of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq, one of two leading political parties in the United Iraqi Alliance, which now dominates the government.
US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick warned at the time that insurgents "are trying to split the society through sectarian killings."
Iraq's Shiites are struggling to bring the disempowered Sunni minority into the political process after it largely boycotted January's elections, including the drawing up of the country's new constitution.
Attacks and clashes north of the capital late Sunday and early yesterday killed 11 members of Iraqi security forces, while another soldier's body was discovered in a river and a businessman was shot dead as he left a US base in Dhuluiyah.
As former French hostage Florence Aubenas enjoyed her first day of rest after five months held hostage in Iraq, her co-captive and fixer Hussein Hanun recovered from his ordeal with his family in Baghdad.
Aubenas, a writer for the center-left daily Liberation, and Hanun were released on Saturday after being taken hostage in Baghdad on Jan. 5.
On her arrival in France, Aubenas told reporters she had been kept in "severe" conditions in a basement, with her hands and ankles bound and a blindfold over her eyes almost all the time.
French authorities did not give any details on the circumstances of her release, but denied a ransom had been paid.
According to Serge July, the chief editor of Liberation, the release was "a fairly complicated military operation" because the kidnappers drove around Baghdad for some time to make sure they could drop the two off with impunity. French authorities did not identify the hostage-takers.
The EU hailed the release, and called on "the different groups in Iraq to free all remaining hostages in captivity and pursue their goals through the political process and not through violence and intimidation."
There are believed to be more than 20 foreign hostages still in Iraq, including citizens of Australia, Brazil, Egypt, Japan, Jordan, the Philippines, Turkey and the US. Many more Iraqis have been abducted.
In Washington, a senator warned the US will "have to face" a painful dilemma on restoring the military draft as the rising casualties result in persistent shortfalls in US army recruitment.
Joseph Biden, the top Democrat of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, made the prediction after new data released by the Pentagon showed the US army failing to meet its recruitment targets for four straight months.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
RSS