Mass grave discovered in northern Iraq

[sabra]

Source: DPA

BAGHDAD - Iraqi forces found the bodies of 55 people allegedly killed and buried by Al Qaeda loyalists in a mass grave near the northern Iraqi city of Samarra, a police officer said Tuesday.

A police force backed by tribal units made the discovery while conducting a search operation in Al Jazira west of Samarra, 120 kilometres north of Baghdad, Colonel Mamduh Al Bazi from the city police told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The bodies were of middle-aged men in plain-clothes, who seemed to have been hurriedly buried at different times.

...

The freed men told the police how they and the slain men were captured by gunmen, who then stole their money and other belongings.

The men were then killed after being told that the loot was to go to the Sunni extremist Islamic State of Iraq, which has links with the Al Qaeda terrorist network.

Read more: http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2008/February/focusoniraq_February9.xml§ion=focusoniraq

[TwilightGardener]

1. Al Qaeda again, huh? Yeah. Uh-huh.

[sabra]

2. "Islamic State of Iraq, which has links with the Al Qaeda terrorist network."

now nobody really talks about what that link consists of...

[alstephenson]

18. My thought, exactly.

They don't know who these men were, or when or why they were killed, but, by God, Al Qaeda did it!!!

[Hugabear]

3. How do we know some of those aren't the ones we pulled out of houses in the middle of the night?

I wouldn't be surprised if those Iraqis were murdered by us.

[littlecryinggirl]

4. After a comment like that

I would just like to say I support our boys. My son is in the Army and my husband is retired from the Army. Frankly your comment disgusts me.

[Hugabear]

5. You can't deny that we have done some pretty horrific things

Just look at what was going on at Abu Gharib, and Guantanamo. What about Haditha? Those are just incidents that we know about. We can't close our eyes and pretend that there aren't atrocities and war crimes being committed.

I'm not saying that ALL of our soldiers are doing these things, but they do occur.

[Barrett808]

8. Welcome to DU, cryinggirl!

:hi:

[littlecryinggirl]

11. Thank you very much.

[sofa king]

17. Enjoy your disgust while you can.

And then read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program

[Jacobin]

19. Welcome and a quick question

Do you know how our troops dispose of the Iraqis that we kill? I think Bush has admitted to killing 40,000 or so whereas other estimates go into the hundreds of thousands. Do we bury the fallen enemy in mass graves or single graves? I know it doesn't matter much, since they are dead either way, but since our media loves to jump out of their skins about Saddam's mass graves, I'm hoping that when we kill a large number of Iraqis that we give them single graves to prove how much better we are than him.

[TwilightGardener]

6. No, our guys didn't do it. Please.

[Hugabear]

9. Just like we didn't do this?

We've killed over 600,000 Iraqis. We KNOW that we've been torturing prisoners. We've used white phosphorus on Iraqi civilians in direct violation of international law.

I'm not saying that we did put those bodies into a mass grave, but we've certainly killed enough to fill up several.

[TwilightGardener]

10. There will always be bad incidents and bad apples in a combat zone. But as the wife of a

career serviceman, I will challenge your assertion that our soldiers are routinely and deliberately targeting and murdering civilians and burying them in mass graves.

[LynnTheDem]

13. Of course we did and are burying Iraqis we've killed in mass graves.

That's SOP. You don't leave dead bodies rotting on the ground during war.

You mass-grave them.

And yes, we do it. In fact, we have our very own mass graves right here in America.

Are we "routinely and deliberately targeting and murdering civilians"? Define "routinely".

Mass graves to reveal Iraq war toll
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1021466,00.html

And I too am the spouse of an army soldier. Doesn't blind me from the atrocities that were & are being committed by many of our troops who have been put, most at a far too young age, into an untenable situation where atrocities become the norm.

[TwilightGardener]

15. OK, I can see we've gone over a cliff of sorts here. Goodbye.

[LynnTheDem]

16. Yes, some facts can be very difficult to take.

But they do remain facts.

You should visit some of America's mass graves. Good thing no one's decide to invade and slaughter us for our havcing murdered & mass-graved "our own people"!

[karlrschneider]

14. You challenge well-known and documented facts? How uh, 'republican' of you.

:eyes:

[LiberalFighter]

7. It was the Blackwater that did it!!! Under orders of Cheney.

[gauguin57]

12. Mission Accomplished!!!

Or ... not?

:eyes: