New Iraq Mass Grave May Contain 500 Bodies

New Iraq Mass Grave May Contain 500 Bodies (Reuters)

Laborers digging on a construction site in northern Iraq uncovered human skulls and bones on Tuesday, which interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said were part of a mass grave believed to contain some 500 bodies. Allawi told Iraq’s National Council in Baghdad that the grave was found near the city of Sulaimaniya in the autonomous Kurdish region in the northeast of the country, where Saddam Hussein’s forces carried out atrocities in the late 1980s. “Today a mass grave was discovered in the city of Sulaimaniya, with the initial number of 500 martyrs,” he said.

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The work of excavating those mass graves already discovered around Iraq has been greatly complicated by an insurgency among Saddam’s Sunni Arab minority. Investigators have been unable to visit many sites because of fighting.

An amazing juxtaposition, indeed, with people fighting against the forces which liberated the country from such as this.

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James Joyner
About James Joyner
James Joyner is Professor and Department Head of Security Studies at Marine Corps University's Command and Staff College. He's a former Army officer and Desert Storm veteran. Views expressed here are his own. Follow James on Twitter @DrJJoyner.

Comments

  1. McGehee says:

    I’m sure it must be Rumsfeld’s fault.

  2. LJD says:

    Somebody call iraqibodycount. The new number of iraqis killed by the U.S. is 100,500!

  3. symptomless says:

    McGehee, that’s quite perceptive.

    Although, whilst Rumsfeld is not directly at fault, he was, at the time of the killings, establishing friendly relations with Saddam Hussein and his Baathist regime with full knowledge of the atrocities.

    There’s plenty of documentation if anyone is interested.

    Though from the evidence it seems like these are only atrocities when they fit into the political gameplan.

  4. McGehee says:

    Simpleness, you’re crowding Anjin-san’s gig.