- BAIJI, Iraq (Reuters) --
The decapitated bodies of three men, their heads strapped to their backs,
were found dumped in bags by a roadside north of Baghdad Wednesday, Iraqi
police and U.S. officials said.
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- It appeared the dead were from the Middle East.
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- The development came after a sharp surge in violence
in the past week, with at least 170 Iraqis killed in bomb blasts, clashes
and other attacks. A car bomb in Baghdad Tuesday killed 47, the deadliest
attack in the capital in six months.
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- There was no let up in the violence Wednesday, with at
least 10 people killed, two of them women, and more than 30 wounded when
U.S. troops clashed with insurgents in Ramadi, a city west of Baghdad,
witnesses and Iraq's Health Ministry said.
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- A car bomb at an Iraqi National Guard post in Suwayra,
south of Baghdad, killed two people and wounded at least 10, a spokesman
for Iraq's Interior Ministry said. In Baquba, north of Baghdad, a roadside
bomb wounded four policemen and a civilian.
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- Separately, the U.S. military said a marine had been
killed during fighting west of Baghdad Tuesday, raising to at least 769
the number of U.S. personnel killed in action in Iraq.
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- The three mutilated bodies were found in nylon bags by
Iraqi National Guardsmen shortly after dawn as they patrolled near Dujail,
60 km (38 miles) north of the capital. The U.S. military said initial indications
were that the dead men were Arabs.
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- Iraqi police said two of the bodies had tattoos written
in the Western Latin script -- one saying "HECER," possibly a
Turkish or Kurdish name, and the other a letter H. The third had tattoos
in Arabic script but the words were not Arabic.
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- There were no documents on the corpses. Two were clothed
in jeans and T-shirts and the third was wearing sweatpants and a T-shirt,
the U.S. military said.
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- HOSTAGE CRISIS
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- Dozens of foreigners have been abducted in Iraq in recent
months, many of them truck drivers from countries such as Turkey, Jordan,
Egypt and Kuwait. Several of those hostages have been beheaded when captors'
demands were not met.
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- At least four Westerners are also being held -- two male
French journalists and two female aid workers from Italy.
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- A group in Samarra, north of Dujail, says it is holding
two Australians and two East Asians but has provided no proof. Australia
has sent a team to investigate but said Wednesday it had accounted for
all 225 Australians known to be in Iraq.
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- "We're still unable to confirm if there's any missing
but that's because we didn't know they were there in the first place,"
a spokesman in Canberra said.
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- The U.S. military has said it plans to pacify all rebellious
Iraqi towns and cities by the end of December, handing security responsibility
over to Iraq police for national elections due to be held by the end of
January.
-
- At the same time, insurgents appear committed to doing
all they can to combat U.S. offensives countrywide, to shake the interim
Iraqi government and disrupt election planning.
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- As well as kidnappings and roadside bomb blasts, the
insurgents seem intent on killing as many Iraqi police and National Guards
as possible, while also targeting recruits.
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- Tuesday's car bomb in Baghdad was detonated outside a
police headquarters in Haifa Street, a busy part of the old city. It went
off as dozens of young men were lining up to join the police force and
as civilians shopped in a nearby market.
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- Similar attacks have taken place throughout the country
in recent months, some of them killing up to 100 people.
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- DETERMINATION
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- While some of those recovering in hospital after the
blast said the attack had now dissuaded them from joining the police service,
others said it made them all the more determined.
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- "I will still join if I can," said Hamdan Radi,
a 25-year-old who came from Amara in the far south to sign up. He ended
up with severe shrapnel wounds across his body.
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- "I don't know if we will manage to defeat the insurgents
in the end, but we must try."
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- If the United States is to re-establish local security
forces throughout the country by its end-December deadline, then it will
at some point in the next three months have to tackle perhaps its biggest
single problem, Falluja.
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- The city of 300,000 just west of Baghdad has been a focal
point of anti-American aggression ever since the fall of Saddam Hussein.
U.S. marines attempted to overrun the city in April, but withdrew after
inflicting heavy Iraqi losses.
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- That withdrawal was interpreted as a victory by local
insurgents, who have since felt encouraged. U.S. officers say the city,
now in rebel hands, is a haven for foreign fighters and hardened local
guerrillas.
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