bloodycrackdown6

Rebels 'Execute' 49 Iraqi Troops, Kill U.S. Diplomat


BAQUBA, Iraq - Rebels killed 49 unarmed army recruits in one of the bloodiest attacks on Iraq National security forces and, in a separate attack Sunday, killed a U.S. diplomat in a mortar strike near Baghdad airport.
The bodies of 37 recruits shot dead on a road northeast of Baghdad were found Saturday and 12 were discovered Sunday.
"They were all executed, we found them executed," Interior Ministry spokesman Adnan Abdul-Rahman said.
The attack was another blow to the efforts of the interim government to rebuild Iraqi security forces to tackle a raging insurgency that U.S.-led forces have failed to quell.

"We found them arranged in groups of 12 with bullets in the head," Iraqi National Guard officer Jassim Saadi told Reuters television in the town of Mandali, near the Iranian border, where the bodies were brought after the ambush.
The bodies, in torn and bloodstained civilian clothes, were taken in the back of trucks to a National Guard base in Mandali, where they were laid out in rows. Some bystanders wept.
The recruits, based at Kirkush, 90 km (55 miles) northeast of Baghdad, had been heading for home leave in three minibuses when they were ambushed at about 8 p.m. (1700 GMT) Saturday.
Police said insurgents disguised as police had set up a checkpoint and stopped the buses. They forced them to leave the buses and lie face down on the tarmac before shooting them.
Villagers heard the gunfire, found the bodies and called police. A dozen recruits who tried to flee were also shot. Their bodies were found Sunday. The minibuses were burned.
A senior security official, who asked not to be named, said most of the soldiers had been from poor families in the mainly Shi'ite cities of Basra, Amara and Nassiriya in southern Iraq.


"It appears that they were ambushed by a large, well-organized force with good intelligence," the source said.
Insurgents have frequently targeted Iraqis seen as cooperating with the U.S. military or the interim government.
The headless body of an unidentified man in a business suit was found Sunday with feet tied, floating in the Tigris River near the northern city of Kirkuk, police said.
The body was the fourth to be recovered from the area in the past two months. The other three appeared to have been Iraqis working with U.S. forces, police said.
Iraqi security forces have taken a more visible role in counter-insurgency operations in recent months and the U.S.- backed government sees them as a key weapon in its drive to win back control of all rebel areas before elections in January.

Earlier this month gunmen ambushed a minibus carrying police back from training in Jordan and killed all nine occupants in an attack south of Baghdad. Suicide bombings have killed hundreds of army, police and National Guard recruits in recent months.


U.S. DIPLOMAT KILLED

A U.S. embassy spokesman said a diplomatic security officer had been killed by "indirect fire" about 5 a.m. on Sunday at Camp Victory, a sprawling U.S. military headquarters near the airport which comes under frequent rebel attack.
"I mourn the loss of one of our own today in Baghdad. Assistant Regional Security Officer Ed Seitz... was a brave American, dedicated to his country," Secretary of State Colin Powell said in a statement.
Seitz was the first American diplomat known to have been killed in Iraq since last year's U.S.-led invasion.
U.S. warplanes pounded targets in Falluja, the toughest guerrilla stronghold, Sunday, killing five people, witnesses said. Hospital officials said the dead were civilians.
The U.S. military said a "precision" strike had destroyed a known enemy command and control post in northern Falluja.
U.S. forces have stepped up air strikes and other attacks in the city west of Baghdad in a campaign they say is aimed at insurgents and foreign fighters led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who has a $25 million U.S. bounty on his head.
Falluja residents say most of the air raid victims are civilians and deny any knowledge of Zarqawi.
Insurgent commanders in Falluja said they were not holding foreign hostage Margaret Hassan and condemned her kidnapping.
"This woman works for a humanitarian organization. She should not have been kidnapped," said the emir, or commander, of one guerrilla group, who asked not to be named.