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New mass grave found in Iraq
BBC News Online ^ | June 07 2003

Posted on 06/07/2003 6:30:23 AM PDT by knighthawk

Another mass grave has been discovered in Iraq at Salman Pak, just south of Baghdad, in the grounds of what used to be a sprawling military complex.

Relatives of missing people have begun excavating the site and on Saturday morning they recovered at least five bodies.

Local residents say they helped bury more than 100 bodies at the military complex in April and they believe many more may be hidden underground.

They say the victims were young men killed in early April, after the American-led invasion had begun.

One body was dressed in pyjamas, another had been blindfolded, while a third had his hands tied and had been shot in the back of the head.

Many of those looking for relatives told Reuters news agency they had not heard of the grave until a Shia party, Daawa, which lost many of its members to Saddam Hussein's death squads, organised a trip to the site.

Most Iraqis at the site are from Baghdad's Sadr City, a Shia slum formerly known as Saddam City.

Many arrived with white sacks filled with cloth to carry away the remains of the dead.

One of them, Kathim al-Darajee, says he spent 10 years at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison and left with only one eye because the other was removed during torture.

"I am looking for my nephew. They showed him and others on television after they were tortured and said they were guilty of opposition to Saddam," he said.

Beyond these freshly-dug graves lie rows and rows of furrowed earth, where earlier victims of the regime may be buried, says the BBC's Chris Morris.

Forensic task

There is a huge forensic task to do here, but hardly anyone available to help, our correspondent says.

British forensic experts are investigating grave sites, but the identity of those buried will not be easy to establish because those searching for loved ones are unknowingly tampering with the evidence.

"Iraq is the land of mass graves and secret prisons," said one man.

Suspected mass grave sites have been identified right across the country.

Human rights groups believe that more than a quarter of a million people disappeared during the long rule of Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: atrocities; iraq; massgrave; massgraves; postwariraq; salmanpak
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
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Basra: Grave believed to contain about 150 Shia Muslims
Abul Khasib: 40 bodies reportedly found
1 posted on 06/07/2003 6:30:24 AM PDT by knighthawk
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To: MizSterious; rebdov; Nix 2; green lantern; BeOSUser; Brad's Gramma; dreadme; Turk2; Squantos; ...
Ping
2 posted on 06/07/2003 6:30:38 AM PDT by knighthawk (Full of power I'm spreading my wings, facing the storm that is gathering near)
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To: knighthawk
Will they be able to determine the causes of death in these cases?
Will these mass graves be the definitive proof after all of SH's possession of WMD?
Just wondering . . .
3 posted on 06/07/2003 6:32:32 AM PDT by Galtoid
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To: knighthawk
New mass grave

Sorry, only interested in WMD's, not NMG's.

4 posted on 06/07/2003 6:34:58 AM PDT by Larry Lucido
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To: Galtoid; Larry Lucido; knighthawk
Will these mass graves be the definitive proof after all of SH's possession of WMD?

It is looking more and more like Saddam and his regieme WAS a weapon of mass destruction.

5 posted on 06/07/2003 6:38:16 AM PDT by TomB
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To: TomB
It is looking more and more like Saddam and his regieme WAS a weapon of mass

Ping, to you, sir!

6 posted on 06/07/2003 6:47:26 AM PDT by gortklattu
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To: knighthawk
They say the victims were young men killed in early April, after the American-led invasion had begun.

Too bad we can't ask some of these guys where the WMD are. But dead men tell no tales.

7 posted on 06/07/2003 6:53:31 AM PDT by Mike Darancette (Soddom has left the bunker.)
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To: knighthawk
Boy, that Sadman was one one hellava reducer of CO² emissions wasn't he? Wonder when the queer-bait commie libs are going to put him up for a Nobel prize of some kind?
8 posted on 06/07/2003 6:55:56 AM PDT by Waco
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To: TomB
No, "mass destruction" is a highly technical term. Killing 30 million people over 10 to 20 years is just a "Cultural Revolution." Now, an evil "street sweeper" shotgun is a WMD!
9 posted on 06/07/2003 6:57:56 AM PDT by Larry Lucido
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To: Larry Lucido
Sorry, only interested in WMD's, not NMG's.
Isn't that the sad truth? The general media philosophy is "report it and forget about it." About this topic the liberal media don't choose to editorialize the way they do about those missing WMDs.
10 posted on 06/07/2003 6:59:07 AM PDT by Clara Lou
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To: Larry Lucido
No, "mass destruction" is a highly technical term. Killing 30 million people over 10 to 20 years is just a "Cultural Revolution." Now, an evil "street sweeper" shotgun is a WMD!

LOL.

"One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic." (Stalin)

11 posted on 06/07/2003 7:01:11 AM PDT by TomB
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To: TomB
Sigh
12 posted on 06/07/2003 7:13:08 AM PDT by MEG33
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To: knighthawk
Tomorrow the BBC will say the Americans planted the bodies to enhance their image in the world.
13 posted on 06/07/2003 7:21:23 AM PDT by OldFriend (without the brave, there would be no land of the free)
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To: knighthawk
The discovery of the existence of the mass graves certainly proves Saddam was a brutal guy (I've never heard anyone argue otherwise), but it does nothing to bolster the argument that the Iraqi regime was an imminent threat to the USA.

Its critical that we turn up the WMDs within the next couple of months.
14 posted on 06/07/2003 7:32:31 AM PDT by mr.pink
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To: mr.pink
Its critical that we turn up the WMDs within the next couple of months.

Only to you.

15 posted on 06/07/2003 7:51:37 AM PDT by TomB
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To: mr.pink
critical? pink? (just another) brutal guy? no threat to us? barf.
16 posted on 06/07/2003 8:11:18 AM PDT by troublesome creek
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To: TomB
I'd have to think besides "only me", the folks who "supplied" the intel also would like to see themselves and their veracity vindicated as opposed to becoming laughingstocks and having their reputations destroyed.
17 posted on 06/07/2003 8:12:20 AM PDT by mr.pink
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To: knighthawk
The mass killing continued right up until the end...
18 posted on 06/07/2003 8:16:11 AM PDT by Republican Wildcat
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To: mr.pink
The connections to Al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations weren't signs of a threat to the U.S., I suppose.
19 posted on 06/07/2003 8:25:42 AM PDT by Republican Wildcat
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To: mr.pink
I'd have to think besides "only me", the folks who "supplied" the intel also would like to see themselves and their veracity vindicated as opposed to becoming laughingstocks and having their reputations destroyed.

I belive you are basing you opinions on the hope that, in a couple of months or a couple of years, when an announcement comes that there are or were no WMDs, the world will fall into an earth-shattering snit. Given the attention span of most people, and the good news coming out of the region, the chance of that coming to pass are slim, either because WMDs (or traces of their destruction, precursors, or production facilities) will be found or people just won't care.

20 posted on 06/07/2003 8:34:42 AM PDT by TomB
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