Topic: Bodies of seven tortured people found in Baghdad

Media: The Associated Press
Byline: n/a
Date: 29 September 2006

BAGHDAD, Iraq - Seven bodies with signs of torture were found in Baghdad on
Friday, more apparent victims of the sectarian death squads that roam the
capital.

The corpses of six men and one woman were all found in east Baghdad
neighborhoods. They were blindfolded, and had their hands and legs bound,
police said.

U.S. commanders said since the start of Ramadan, which Sunnis started
observing last Saturday and Shiites on Monday, there has been a spike in
sectarian violence in Iraq, centered in the capital.

In the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, a stronghold of radical Shiite
cleric Muqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia, a funeral procession was
held for Abdul-Karim Abdul-Wahid al-Shamari. The man, one of al-Sadr's
lieutenants, was killed Thursday night on his way back to Baghdad from
Najaf, police Col. Kadhim Abbas Hamza said.