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110 bullet-riddled bodies found in Baghdad


Villagers inspect damage from a car bomb in a Shiite neighborhood in Baghdad.

POSTED: 0228 GMT (1028 HKT), October 10, 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi security forces have found 110 bodies dumped across the capital in the past two days, all killed in a manner authorities attribute to Sunni-Shiite sectarian strife.

Baghdad police said 60 bullet-riddled bodies were found around Baghdad between Monday morning and Tuesday morning, and another 50 were found later in the day Tuesday.

Some of the bodies showed signs of torture and had their hands and feet bound. The bodies could not be immediately identified. (Watch how violent the first part of October has been for Iraq -- 1:01 [watch via source link last below] )

Elsewhere in Iraq, 15 people were killed in attacks in or near Baghdad, and 11 insurgents were slain by coalition and Iraqi troops in the southern city of Diwaniya.

A string of deadly attacks

Ten civilians were killed on Tuesday when a bomb was detonated under a car in the southern Baghdad neighborhood of Dora, emergency police said.

The blast -- which occurred at 1 p.m. -- wounded four other people.

The bombing was near the Hatem Al-Sa'adoun Mosque. Police said the apparent target was a bakery.

In another incident in the same neighborhood, a roadside bomb targeting a U.S.-Iraqi patrol killed a policeman and wounded four others.

In the mainly Sunni Seleikh neighborhood of northern Baghdad, a suicide car bomber slammed into an Iraqi army checkpoint, killing two Iraqi soldiers and wounding seven, police said.

And in Rashid, a town about 16 miles (25 kilometers) south of the capital, a roadside bomb exploded near an Iraqi police patrol, killing two officers and wounding three others, police said.

Farther south in the Shiite-dominated city of Diwaniya, coalition and Iraqi forces clashed with insurgents near the Al Qaim Mosque on Monday evening, leaving 11 insurgents dead, a U.S. military statement said.

The gun battle occurred when a joint coalition and Iraqi unit on routine patrol came under fire while speaking with police at a checkpoint near the mosque.

The enemy fighters, which the military labeled as terrorists, were dressed as Iraqi police officers, and a pickup truck with Iraqi police markings was heavily damaged, the military said.

Diwaniya -- located in the southern province of Qadisiya -- has a dominant Shiite presence, and it has been the scene of recent hostilities between coalition forces and the Mehdi Army militia loyal to anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

On Saturday night, a raid by the U.S. military left 30 insurgents from the Mehdi Army militia dead; in late August, a pitched battle between his fighters and government troops left more than 60 people dead.

Hussein ejected

Saddam Hussein was ejected again in a rowdy session of his trial in Baghdad for alleged crimes during the 1988 Anfal campaign in the Kurdish region. He was removed from the court after getting into a heated argument with chief judge Mohammad Orabi Majeed al-Khalefa.

The confrontation began after Hussein protested al-Khalefa's refusal to let two other defendants cross-examine a witness. After arguing with the judge, Hussein was ordered out of the courtroom. (Full story [ http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/10/hussein.trial/index.html ] )

Other developments

-- Four more U.S. troops have died in Iraq, according to U.S. military statements issued Tuesday. Three U.S. Marines were killed Monday in fighting in Anbar province. And a U.S. soldier died after a bombing while on patrol north of Tikrit on Sunday. Since the start of the war, the U.S. military has suffered 2,742 fatalities in Iraq. Seven American civilian contractors of the military also have died in the conflict.

-- A fire at an ammunition depot late Tuesday sparked a series of powerful explosions and a massive fire at a small U.S. base in southern Baghdad, the U.S. military said. The blasts, some of which shook buildings at least four miles away, continued for more than an hour. The cause of the fire at Forward Operating Base Falcon was not yet known, officials said. No casualties were immediately reported, according to Iraqi police and the U.S. military. (Watch the blasts light up Baghdad -- 3:36 [watch via source link below] )

-- An Iraqi international soccer referee was released unharmed Tuesday morning after being kidnapped over the weekend, an official with the Iraqi Olympic Committee said. No ransom was paid. Gunmen abducted Hazim Hussein on Sunday as he left the Iraqi Federation of Football office in northwestern Baghdad, the official said.

CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq and Peter Morris contributed to this report.

© 2006 Cable News Network LP, LLLP.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/10/iraq.main/index.html