Reply #2: and they found EIGHT severed heads ... [View All]

... just 'left' at the side of the road, in Iraq.

http://www.canada.com/topics/news/world/story.html?id=901d84d6-f1f4-400c-b845-844338fa8f3c&k=11593


Iraqi police find 8 severed heads near Baqouba

Kim Gamel, Canadian Press
Published: Saturday, June 03, 2006

BAGHDAD (AP) -

Iraqi police on Saturday found eight severed heads north of Baghdad with a note
indicating at least one of the men were killed in retaliation for the slaying of four
Shiite doctors, authorities said.

Five of the slain men were security guards at a hospital complex in the capital who
had been arrested by Iraqi police on Thursday, Lt. Col. Adil Al-Zihari of the Diyala,
police said.

Notes found with the heads near a highway in the Hadid village near the volatile city
of Baqouba, 60 kilometres northeast of Baghdad, said one of those killed was
Abdul Aziz al-Sheik Hamad and accused him of killing four Shiite doctors and a former
governor during the administrator of former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi.

The heads were transferred in fruit boxes to the morgue in Baqouba, a mixed Sunni
Arab-Shiite town that has recently seen an increase in sectarian violence.

Gunmen also ambushed a police checkpoint in the city on Saturday,
killing seven policemen and wounding five pedestrians, police said.

Elsewhere, gunmen opened fire on two people in a car, killing one of them
and wounding the other, in a drive-by shooting in the predominantly Sunni Dora
neighbourhood in southern Baghdad.
One of those killed was a car salesman, Lt. Maitham Abdul Razzaq said.

A bomb also struck a police car in eastern Baghdad, wounding three policemen
and one civilian, police said.

At least four bodies were found across Baghdad on Saturday, including a man in his 40s
who was shot to death with his hands and legs bound, then dumped behind a hospital in
Sadr City and two other men who were bound and shot to death, showed signs of torture
and were left near a ditch near the Shiite slum.

The fourth body, which was shot in the head and showed signs of torture,
was found in an intersection in eastern Baghdad.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, held last-minute negotiations with Sunni
and Shiite leaders on the eve of his planned announcement of names for the interior
and defence ministers, two weeks after his government of national unity took office.

Al-Maliki promised earlier this week to fill the posts on Sunday,
despite failing to reach an agreement on candidates with ethnic and sectarian parties.

The appointments are considered key to his plan to take over the security of Iraq
within 18 months, a move that could pave the way for the withdrawal of U.S. forces.

The defence and interior minister posts have been temporarily held by al-Maliki
and one of his deputy prime ministers since the Cabinet was sworn in May 20.
The Interior Ministry post will go to a Shiite.
Sunni Arabs have complained that many Shiite candidates had ties to militias.

Al-Maliki told visiting U.S. congressmen on Friday that "we are keen to march in
the correct direction to confront these challenges despite the difficulties."