January 30, 2008	Wednesday	Muharram 20, 1429

BAQUBA, Jan 29: Iraqi police said they found the remains of 19 executed men in the volatile northeastern province of Diyala on Tuesday, including 10 heads removed from their bodies.And two people were killed and around 20 wounded in a series of bomb blasts in Baghdad, while a suicide bomber targeting a US patrol wounded 10 Iraqis in the northern city of Mosul, where five US soldiers were killed on Monday.

The gruesome discovery in Diyala was made near the town of Moqdadiyah, 65 kilometres from Baghdad, provincial police official Lieutenant-Colonel Ismael al-Juburi said.

He said the victims had all been killed in the past few days.

The nine victims whose bodies were found intact had been shot dead, according to Ahmed Fuad, head of the hospital morgue in Baquba. All the victims were men, but their identities were unknown.

Diyala province is one of the most dangerous in Iraq and a stronghold of the Iraqi branch of Al Qaeda. Earlier this month, US-Iraqi forces launched a major sweep in the province targeting the jihadis.

The two people killed in Baghdad died from their injuries in hospital after being caught by a bomb blast in the Karrada district that initially wounded three policemen and five passers-by, security officials and a medic said.

Shortly before, a bomb exploded on nearby Saydun Street along the Tigris river in the centre of Baghdad as an Iraqi army patrol was passing, wounding six civilians and four soldiers, the sources said.

In the district of Yarmuk in western Baghdad, three more civilians were wounded in an explosion, and two people were hurt when a mortar round crashed on the eastern neighbourhood of Al-Fadliyah.

Tuesday’s suicide bombing occurred in Mosul’s Al-Shaab neighbourhood, according to police Brigadier General Khalid Abdul Sattar. “Ten civilians were wounded,” he said.

The US military confirmed the attack. “Initial reports indicate one civilian was killed and 15 were wounded. No coalition forces were killed or wounded in the attack.” On Monday, a US jeep was hit by a powerful roadside bomb while on patrol in an eastern suburb of Mosul, killing five troopers. The patrol was then sprayed with small arms fire by gunmen holed up in a nearby mosque, US commanders said.

Iraqi and US forces are engaged in an extensive operation against Al Qaeda in Mosul as part of a nationwide crackdown on the jihadis codenamed Operation Phantom Phoenix launched on Jan 8.

Just one day after the sweep was launched, six US soldiers were killed when they entered a booby-trapped house in Diyala province, and four others were wounded.

Military spokesman Commander Scott Rye said on Tuesday that US commanders had expected heavier losses when they launched the new assault on Al Qaeda three weeks ago.

“With the kick-off of Operation Phantom Phoenix, we knew that there would be an increased number of engagements with Al Qaeda as we took the fight to areas where we had not had a presence before — places where, in some cases, Al Qaeda had been entrenched for years,” Rye said.—AFP