Insurgents blamed as 41 bodies found

IRAQI police have found 41 headless or bullet-scarred bodies - some of them civilians and others Iraqi soldiers - in the heartland of the country’s insurgency.

Some of the victims had been shot in the back of the head, while others had been beheaded.

The news broke yesterday, as gunmen launched an attack on the Iraqi planning minister’s convoy in a failed assassination attempt.

Police said Mehdi al-Hafedh survived but one of his bodyguards died in the shooting in Baghdad, where a suicide bomber in an explosives-laden refuse lorry had earlier killed two policemen.

In a separate attack in Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed a US soldier.

Al-Qaeda’s Iraqi wing, which is led by the Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, said it carried out the suicide bombing that wounded at least 20 others - part of its relentless campaign to bring down the government and drive out US troops.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility yesterday for the attack on the minister.

The killings of the 41, found in Qaim, close to the Syrian border, and near Latafiya, south of Baghdad, bore the marks of the insurgency.

In Qaim, the bodies of 26 people, including one woman, were found. A doctor said the victims, who were wearing civilian clothes, had been shot two days ago.

A further 15 bodies were found in the Sunni-dominated area known as the "triangle of death", according to Iraqi army sources.

Elsewhere, an Iraqi militant group, the Islamic Army in Iraq, posted an internet video showing two Sudanese hostages urging other drivers in Iraq not to work with the western occupation forces.