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WITH paintbrushes, forensic specialists are carefully brushing away dirt from a human skull covered with sandy soil, one of 1500 believed to be buried in seven mass graves uncovered in this desolate stretch of the Iraqi desert, now patrolled by Australian troops. In a nearby trench dug by US investigators, a mass of black tangled hair gives a second skull an almost life-like appearance. A third skull appears to be screaming, mouth wide open. Skulls and bones, clothing and other belongings found in shallow graves offer valuable clues to investigators gathering evidence against Saddam Hussein and others from the former...

BAGHDAD, April 29 -- U.S. investigators have exhumed the remains of 113 people -- all but five of them women, children or teenagers -- from a mass grave in southern Iraq that may hold at least 1,500 victims of Saddam Hussein's campaign against the Kurdish minority in the 1980s, U.S. and Iraqi officials said this week. The recovered bodies are expected to be among the evidence used against the deposed Iraqi president by prosecutors at a special tribunal, investigators said. The non-acidic soil at the grave site preserved layers and layers of distinctive Kurdish clothing worn by many of the...

NEAR SAMAWA, Iraq, April 30 (Reuters) - Investigators have uncovered a mass grave in southern Iraq containing as many as 1,500 bodies, most of them thought to be Kurds forcibly removed from their homes in the late 1980s. The site, near the town of Samawa, about 300 km (180 miles) south of Baghdad, consists of 18 shallow trenches dug by earth-moving vehicles into hard limestone rock. Most of the victims were women and children who were apparently lined up in front of the pits and shot with AK-47 assault rifles, according to a U.S. investigator. Around 110 bodies have been...

By Sayed Mahdi Almodarresi Our greatest tragedy may be that we tend to forget our tragedies The killed were killed, the captured were killed, and the injured were killed as well. No one was spared. Jews were victims of Nazi oppression and “ethnic cleansing”, the result of which was the extermination of over five million Jews. By perpetrating such a heinous crime Hitler engraved his name in history as one of the most notorious criminals who immersed himself in the blood of innocent people... We are not going to dispute that. In fact, we, more than anybody can fully grasp...

I think we can agree on this: 2004 was not the best year that ever was. There was precious little to recommend 2004 as "my favorite year." Election results - In the US, Afghanistan and the Ukraine - pretty much cover the positive news. In January, when I was in Baghdad, a huge explosion killed dozens of people just outside one of the main gates leading into the Green Zone. As the year ended a wave of Biblical proportions killed so many people that - that it defies comprehension. In between it was like the 1959 Kingston Trio song, "The...

Workers digging the foundation of a new hospital in this northern city discovered Wednesday a burial site that regional human right minister said could contain the remains of hundreds of people. At least seven bodies were removed from the excavation in Suleimaniyah's suburb of Dabashin shortly after they were discovered. Officials said the bodies were believed to be of Kurds killed while fleeing Saddam Hussein's army as it tried to crush an uprising following the 1991 Gulf War. Speaking at the site of the dig, Salah Rashid, the regional Kurdish human rights minister, said "there are mass graves all over...

Mass grave of women and children uncovered in Iraq Forensic experts hope evidence will help convict Saddam Hussein By Agence France Presse (AFP) Thursday, October 14, 2004 HATRA, Iraq: Forensic experts digging for evidence against ousted Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein have carried out their first full exhumation of a mass grave filled with the skeletons of scores of women and children, many shot in the back of the head. "This is all women and children. We have taken in excess of 120 bodies out of there," said U.S. investigator Greg Kehoe as he stood over one of nine trenches piled...

A mass grave containing the bodies of children, babies and their mothers has been unearthed in Iraq.Shocked investigators reported finding "thighbones the size of matchsticks" at what they believe is the site of one of Saddam Hussein's atrocities. Among the findings-were the skeletons of unborn babies and toddlers clutching toys. A baby had been shot in the back of its head and was found still being clutched by its mother, who had been shot in the face. The discovery was reported as Tony Blair came under mounting pressure to apologise to Parliament for the misleading intelligence claiming Saddam had weapons...

A mass grave being excavated in a north Iraqi village has yielded evidence that Iraqi forces executed women and children under Saddam Hussein. US-led investigators have located nine trenches in Hatra containing hundreds of bodies believed to be Kurds killed during the repression of the 1980s. The skeletons of unborn babies and toddlers clutching toys are being unearthed, the investigators said. They are seeking evidence to try Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity. It is believed to be the first time investigators working for the Iraqi Special Tribunal (IST) have conducted a full scientific exhumation of a mass grave. "It...

Horror unearthed from Iraqi mass grave Wednesday 13 October 2004, 1:47 Makka Time, 22:47 GMTInvestigators probing mass graves in Iraq have conducted their first scientific exhumation of bodies.Hoping to unearth crucial evidence that could help in convicting deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, investigators said nine trenches in a dry riverbed at the Hatra site in northern Iraq contained at least 300 bodies, and possibly thousands. Those buried included children still clutching toys."It is my personal opinion that this is a killing field," said Greg Kehoe, a US lawyer appointed by the White House to work with the Iraqi Special Tribunal."Someone...

The inhabitants of the Al-Kafal town have found at least 30 bodies in a new mass grave left by the defunct Saddamist regime. Our correspondent quoted several of the town's inhabitants who said that some of the local people discovered the mass grave while transporting sand. Workers have started to dig up the bodies from the mass grave under the supervision of the religious authorities in holy Al-Najaf. Since the US-led invasion of Iraq and the toppling of the criminal Saddam government, mass graves that contain thousands of bodies have been found in areas where the majority of the inhabitants...

MAZAR-E SHARIF, Afghanistan (CNN) -- In the stifling desert of northern Afghanistan, lying as still as the air, is evidence of the gruesome fate that met hundreds of Taliban fighters late last year. The discovery of numerous mass graves, filled with bones and skulls, raises questions about exactly what happened to prisoners after they were captured last November in the northern city of Konduz by the U.S.-backed forces of Northern Alliance Gen. Adbul Rashid Dostum. The ground around Mazar-e-Sharif offers abundant evidence of mass death. In May, investigators with the Boston, Massachusetts-based group Physicians for Human Rights examined a grave...

KABUL -- Afghan Defense Minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim on Wednesday denied reports of a mass grave of Taliban prisoners said to have suffocated in Northern Alliance trucks, but said an investigation had been launched. "I don't believe that there would be a mass grave in Dasht-e-Leili," Fahim said in the capital Kabul. "The Ministry of Defense has some contact with the concerned sources in the area and the province to do the exact investigation." The United States on Monday said it was looking into a *** Newsweek *** magazine report that some 1,000 Taleban prisoners may have died of asphyxiation...

Coalition, Iraqis Exhume Mass Graves in Search for Justice By Jim GaramoneAmerican Forces Press Service MAHAWIL, Iraq, Sept. 6, 2003 – All that remains is a field filled with plastic bags of clothing and other personal effects. The field was the site of a mass grave of Shiia Muslims killed following the uprising against Saddam Hussein in 1991. When U.S. Marines arrived in the area in April, the local people went to the field and exhumed what was left of their loved ones murdered by the former regime. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld visited the site during this trip...

DOZENS of bodies were exhumed today from a mass grave in the northern Iraqi region of Al-Hadar under the supervision of US experts. The remains of people who residents said were victims of the ousted regime of Saddam Hussein were dug up from a grave at Sahil Attaf, south of the northern capital of Mosul. The digs, which were undertaken by a team from the US Armed Forces Institute of Pathology, with the help of American troops and members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), will continue over the coming days. The US team said it put the remains unearthed...

HATRA, Iraq, July 5 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) - The remains of about 300 people, believed to be Kurdish victims of the deposed regime of Saddam Hussein, have been found in a mass grave in northern Iraq Saturday, July 5. According to an Agence France-Presse (AFP) correspondent, bone, hair and bits of clothing were clearly visible at the bottom of a gaping hole five meters (16.5 feet) wide in a barren desert plain near the town of Hatra, about 300 kilometers (185 miles) northwest of the capital Baghdad. "So far they have taken out 50 bodies out of about 300,"...

KUWAIT (Reuters) - Kuwait said on Saturday it had identified the remains of a second Kuwaiti national discovered at a mass grave in Iraq as a prisoner of war missing since Iraq's 1990 invasion of the Gulf Arab state. A statement from a committee charged with searching for POWs said DNA tests showed some of the remains found at a grave near the southern town of Samawa belonged to Ahmed Abdullah Abdul Rasooul al-Qalaaf, the official KUNA reported. Kuwait said last week it had found the remains of another national at the same grave. Qalaaf, a soldier, was arrested by...

Another mass grave has been discovered in Iraq at Salman Pak, just south of Baghdad, in the grounds of what used to be a sprawling military complex. Relatives of missing people have begun excavating the site and on Saturday morning they recovered at least five bodies. Local residents say they helped bury more than 100 bodies at the military complex in April and they believe many more may be hidden underground. They say the victims were young men killed in early April, after the American-led invasion had begun. One body was dressed in pyjamas, another had been blindfolded, while a...

IRAQIS have discovered a mass grave believed to date back to the aftermath of the 1991 Gulf war and have already dug up 35 corpses, an AFP correspondent reported. People using spades uncovered bones and skulls, which were collected in small piles at a wasteland site on the southern edge of Babylon, about 100km south of Baghdad. US marines at the site said the bones included those of children.

Apr. 30, 2002 IDF: Palestinians adding bodies from cemetery to Jenin mass graveBy MARGOT DUDKEVITCH Palestinians in the Jenin refugee camp are inflating the number of residents killed during Operation Defensive Shield by adding bodies of residents buried in a local cemetery to a mass grave that contains the bodies of 26 residents killed in the IDF operation, the army said yesterday. The IDF Spokesman said that Palestinians had begun removing bodies from a cemetery located near the government hospital in the camp to the mass grave, bringing the total number of bodies to 50. In addition, PA officials have...