Fifty-three blindfolded bodies found in Iraq as political leaders bicker

BAGHDAD, Iraq, (Reuters) – Iraqi security forces found 53 corpses, blindfolded and handcuffed, south of Baghdad yesterday as Shi’ite and Kurdish leaders traded accusations over an Islamist insurgency raging in the country’s Sunni provinces.

Officials said dozens of bodies were discovered near the mainly Shi’ite Muslim village of Khamissiya, with bullets to the chest and head, the latest mass killing since Sunni insurgents swept through northern Iraq.

“Fifty-three unidentified corpses were found, all of them blindfolded and handcuffed,” Sadeq Madloul, governor of the mainly Shi’ite southern province of Babil, told reporters.

He said the victims appeared to have been killed overnight after being brought by car to an area near the main highway running from Baghdad to the southern provinces, about 25 km (15 miles) southeast of the city of Hilla.

The identity and sectarian affiliation of the dead people was not immediately clear, he said.

Sunni militants have been carrying out attacks around the southern rim of Baghdad since spring. In response, Shi’ite militias have been active in rural districts of Baghdad, abducting Sunnis they suspect of terrorism, many of whom later turn up dead.

The tit-for-tat attacks have escalated dramatically since Sunni Islamist fighters seized control of large parts of northern and western Iraq last month, sweeping towards Baghdad in the most serious challenge to the Shi’ite-led government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki since the withdrawal of U.S. forces in 2011.