In a new sign of the resurgence of death squads, both Sunni and Shia, despite an ongoing U.S.-Iraqi security operation, several dozen people were found dead across the country Monday. In Ramadi, west of Baghdad, Iraqi police uncovered 17 decomposed bodies buried beneath two schoolyards, all thought to be victims of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State of Iraq militants, who until recently controlled the turbulent city in the heart of the Anbar governorate, west of Iraq. An Iraqi police source said that one body had not yet been removed because it was thought to be booby-trapped.

In Baghdad, 25 bodies with signs of torture were found dumped in different areas yesterday, bringing the total over the last three days to 67, the highest number since the start of the U.S.-led Imposing Law security operation. Anecdotal evidence from local sources in Baghdad suggest the numbers are much higher, since many corpses are left on the street for days without being picked up by authorities.

Residents in the Sunni-majority district of Adhamiya reported several bodies in their area, including one in the middle of the commercial Dhubat Street left by insurgents who were described as "Al-Qaeda" by locals. Almost all victims are Sunni, some of them members of rival insurgent groups, local council members, or Islamic Party members and other Sunnis who have participated in the political process, according to residents. They said anyone who dares even look at the body, let alone touch it or remove it, would risk immediate execution by militants. U.S. and Iraqi forces are just a few hundred meters away at the newly renovated Adhamiya police station, residents said, but they are usually oblivious to what is going on around them behind the concrete blast walls when they are not out on patrol. Similar scenes are described in many parts of western and southern Baghdad.

Al-Melaf Press quotes "informed sources" in the Sadrist Movement who said that the decision to relieve two senior Sadrist politicians of their membership in the movement was because they had attended a feast in the residence of former Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Ja'fari, which was also attended by General David Petraeus and other top U.S. military commanders. Former Transport Minister Salam Al-Maliki and Qusay Abdul Wahhab, a Sadrist member of parliament, were invited to the feast at Ja'fari's residence in the Green Zone, along with 60 other Iraqi politicians, Monday. The sources added that Maliki and Abdul Wahhab had a short chat with Gen. Petraeus to discuss the release of Mahdi Army elements recently detained in Basrah. A statement released by the Sadrist Movement mentioned that Muqtada Al-Sadr strictly forbids meeting with American officials because it would be considered "acquiescence to the occupation."

Al-Iraq News reports that Ahmed Mera, editor-in-chief of Lavin Magazine, was released late Monday night after being detained for several hours by security forces in Sulaimaniya, in the Kurdish region north of Iraq. Mustafa Salih Karim, deputy head of the Kurdish Journalists' Union, said that Mera was released after intervention from the union and officials from the Central Media Bureau of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan. Heman Baqir, an editor at the magazine, had told the Voices of Iraq Agency that KRG security and intelligence forces (Asayish) had asked for information on the editor-in-chief after he published an article titled 'The Legacy of the Sick Man' on the repercussions of the recent illness of President Jalal Talabani, which had speculations on who would succeed Talabani as PUK leader. Baqir then received a phone call from Mera Monday morning informing him that security forces were at his residence, before he disappeared. The Asayish director in Sulaimaniya said that Mera was arrested for libel against the president, adding that the complaint was made by Talabani's office. Several journalists in the Kurdish region have recently reported harassment and ill treatment by Asayish forces and KRG authorities while conducting their jobs, especially those investigating KRG human rights violations and corruption of Kurdish officials.

Zainab Al-Ghurban, head of the Committee for Women and Children in the Baghdad Governorate Council revealed in a press statement that there are over 300 thousand widowed mothers and 900 thousand orphaned children in Baghdad. Al-Ghurban said that military operations and acts of violence in the capital are behind the rise in the number of widows and orphans, adding that most orphans are children between the ages of three and nine. "The phenomenon of orphaned children begging on the streets and carrying out work for material gains is spreading," she said.

A leader of one of the largest Sunni Arab tribes in Kirkuk denied news reports on the formation of a tribal force to combat Al-Qaeda elements in the oil-rich northern city. Sheikh Abdullah Sami Al-Assi, chief of the Ubaid, a Sunni Arab tribe that extends from Kirkuk to Ba'quba, northeast of Baghdad, and member of the Kirkuk Governorate Council, said that there was no truth to the reports that Arab tribes around Kirkuk were preparing to confront Al-Qaeda, similar to other groups in Anbar, adding that such reports aim to stir trouble in the governorate.

Nirgal Gate reports through eyewitness accounts that U.S. troops had stormed into the Babel College for Theological Studies in Dora, south of Baghdad, and turned it into a military base. The college, which is owned by the Chaldean Catholic Church, had moved to the Christian town of Ankawa, near Erbil in the Kurdish region, north of Iraq, as a result of deteriorating security in Dora, where Sunni insurgent groups had started a campaign of intimidation against the Assyrian and Chaldean communities.

By Zeyad Kasim
www.iraqslogger.com