Mass grave found in western Iraq

NPR: "In western Iraq, authorities have discovered a mass grave they say holds the remains of more than 800 people who are thought to have been killed during the rule of Saddam Hussein.

It's believed the country has hundreds of mass graves from the Saddam era — and countless new graves from more recent conflicts. But not all sites get the same treatment.

Into The Grave

Down in the recently discovered grave, a set of remains lies along with the person's belongings. All that's left of the person is a skeleton — hip bone, joints, vertebrae. There's a skull with a bullet hole.

Local human rights chief Khudeir Hamdan says teams will take these skulls and test their DNA, then try to match them with DNA from families who have reported their loved ones missing.

Some of the remains were dressed in military uniforms, and some were in civilian clothes, he says. Some were women; some were children.

Hamdan says the victims are thought to be Kurds or Shiites — the main groups that rose up against Saddam. And the same groups that are in power today."

Another mass grave discovered

'A mass grave yard of the victims of the former Baath regime had been discovered by a Human Rights team in northern Basra on Friday, a local Basra official said on Saturday.

“The grave yard, discovered by a team of Human Rights Ministry and the Human Rights Bureau, in al-Der village, 60 km to the north of Basra, comprised remnants of many victims of the former regime, dating back to 1991,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq news agency.'

Thanks Hayder for posting.

Mass grave found in southern Iraq

"Iraq's Human Rights Ministry says a Saddam Hussein-era mass grave dating to his 1991 suppression of a Shiite revolt has been unearthed in the south.

Ministry's spokesman Kamil Ameen says government teams working on an irrigation project found the grave in an agricultural area in Maysan province.

Ameen told The Associated Press Tuesday that about 20 bodies were unearthed. The irrigation project has been put on hold until the excavation is complete.

Since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion toppling Saddam's regime, mass graves have been found across Iraq.

Following Saddam's defeat in the first Gulf War, Iraq's Shiites revolted in the south, but were brutally suppressed. Hundreds of thousands are believed to have been killed."

Another mass grave discovered in Iraq

"A mass grave discovered in northeast Iraq contains dozens of bodies, mostly of women and children believed killed during a crackdown against Kurds by former dictator Saddam Hussein, an Iraqi official said Saturday."


Meanwhile the Arabs continue their KABOBfest and their praise of "resistance" to the "puppet government" of Baghdad. 

Mass Graves

Thanks Scott for sending me this.

U.S. Scientists Unearth Truth of Saddam's Reign of Terror

Tuesday, January 6, 2009 2:13 PM

By: Dennis Fisher

A feature story in the January issue of Archaeology Magazine reports that U.S. efforts in Iraq are doing more than just bringing freedom to the once totalitarian state. American scientists are also delivering a measure of justice to the families of tens of thousands of Kurds slaughtered by Saddam Hussein's forces, according to the magazine, which hit newsstands this week.

At the prodding of the investigators at Human Rights Watch, who had heard horrific first-hand accounts of the mass executions from survivors, U.S. Army archaeologists and other experts in 2003 began excavating mass graves and gathering evidence for trials that resulted in convictions last year for several Iraqi officials and military commanders on charges of crimes against humanity.

The extraordinary - and dangerous - work done by the Army Corps of Engineers team and other forensics experts uncovered horrific scenes in more than 200 mass graves spread out across the country. Their efforts, detailed in the current issue of Archaeology, were led by Corps of Engineers archaeologist Michael Trimble.

Trimble tells Archaeology's Heather Pringle that his team unearthed evidence of ethnic cleansing from the 1990s that leaves no doubt about the atrocities committed by Hussein's regime.

"If Steven Spielberg ever did a documentary on what happened to the Kurds, this is where he would come," Trimble tells the magazine. "There are graves as far as the eye can see." Trimble’s team team picked one, and brought in heavy equipment to scrape off the top layers of sand revealing bodies just a foot and a half below the surface.

Discoveries like this one, along with a stack of documents listing the execution orders and plans for rounding up political enemies of Hussein's regime, brought international attention to the slaughter of the Kurds and was the heart of the prosecution's case against Hussein and his cronies. Trimble's testimony, which included pictures of mannequins wearing the clothes of victims, was too much for the Iraqi trial judges.

Partway through his presentation Trimble noticed one judge dabbing his eye. Two others soon followed suit. At first Trimble was puzzled, thinking something was wrong. Then he realized what was happening. 'My God,' he thought, 'they are all crying,' Trimble told Archaeology.

© 2009 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Grave of 20 students found in Diyala

Mass grave of 20 students found north of Baghdad
(DPA)

24 September 2007BAGHDAD - A mass grave with the bodies of 20 murdered students was found in the Iraqi province of Diyala, north of the capital Baghdad, an Iraqi security spokesman reported Monday.

According to the Aswat Al Iraq news agency, the bodies were of young men taken by extremists from a main street, and killed and buried in the area of Al Abara near the provincial capital Baquba.

Diyala province has become a centre of Sunni extremism primarily after a US-led military push to remove Al Qaeda extremists from western province of Al Anbar.

The city of Al Maqdadiya has become of the most dangerous locations in the province, where on Sunday seven people were found murdered. US and Iraqi soldiers claimed to have captured five suspected Al Qaeda terrorists on the same day.