BAGHDAD, Jan 15: The bodies of 18 Iraqis shot dead were found dumped on roadsides in central Iraq on Saturday, underscoring the power of insurgents operating in the region ahead of key elections at the end of the month.

Thirteen corpses, including that of a young woman, were discovered near Latifiyah, 40 kilometres south of Baghdad, witnesses said. The bodies displayed bullet holes that gave the impression their killers had shot them at close range, said resident Abdel Rahman al-Janabi.

Most of the bodies were men aged between 20 and 40, along with a woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties. Residents were afraid to alert police for fear of reprisal by insurgents in the stretch of lush farm land south of Baghdad where some are still faithful to detained dictator Saddam Hussein, said local Abdu Saleh Ithawi.

Also south of Baghdad, the bullet-riddled corpses of four Iraqis working with a foreign company, were discovered near Kut. The dead were identified as an Iraqi businessman and three of his workers who had been threatened for working with a foreign company, police said.

The bodies were dumped near the town of Al-Suweira where insurgents have set up checkpoints and carried out attacks, drawing attention once more to the high level of power exercised by rebels across central Iraq.

North of Baghdad, US soldiers recovered the body of a man from a river near Duluiyah, the military said. Insurgents regularly execute Iraqi security forces, businessmen and others considered sympathetic to US troops and the interim Iraqi government.

Meanwhile, a six-year-old girl and three other people were wounded when US troops opened fire on a car behind them after coming under fire on the highway north east of Kut, one of the victims told AFP from his hospital bed.

SECURITY PLAN: With elections barely two weeks away, Iraq's interim government unveiled a security plan on Saturday aimed at stopping anti-US insurgents making good their threat to create a polling day bloodbath.