July 16, 2003	Wednesday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 15, 1424

AL-HADAR (Iraq), July 15: Dozens of bodies were exhumed Tuesday from a mass grave in the northern Iraqi region of Al-Hadar under the supervision of US experts.

The remains of people who residents said were victims of the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein were dug up from a grave at Sahil Attaf, south of the northern capital of Mosul.

The digs, which were undertaken by a team from the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, with the help of American troops and members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), will continue over the coming days.

The US team said it put the remains unearthed on Tuesday in around 40 bags each containing the remains of two to four people. Pieces of Kurdish women’s clothing and coloured headscarves were found in the grave. Several skulls appeared to have been pierced by bullets, indicating some victims had been shot in the head.

According to residents, the exhumed bodies belong to Kurds from regions further north, including women and children, executed by Saddam’s regime in 1988, the final year of an eight-year war between Iran and Iraq.—AFP