Killings of civilians increase steadily, with more evidence of targeted slayings

Targeted killings claim nine times more lives than car bombs, statistics show.
LOS ANGELES TIMES
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- More Iraqi civilians were killed in Baghdad during the first three months of this year than at any time since the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime -- at least 3,800 people, most of them found hog-tied and shot execution-style by the assassins stalking this city.
Others were strangled, electrocuted, stabbed, garroted or hanged. Some died in bombings. Many bore signs of torture such as bruises, drill holes, burn marks, gouged eyes or severed limbs.
Every day, about 40 bodies arrive at the central Baghdad morgue, an official said. But the numbers also demonstrate a shift in the nature of the bloodshed, which has increasingly targeted both sides of the country's sectarian divide.
In the previous three years, the killings were indiscriminate, impersonal. Violence mostly came in the form of bombs wielded by the Sunni-led insurgency that primarily targeted the country's Shiite majority: balls of fire and shrapnel tearing through the bodies of those riding the wrong bus, shopping at the wrong market or standing in the wrong line.
Increase in targeted killings
Now, the killings are systematic, personal. Masked gunmen storm into homes, and the victims -- the majority of them Sunnis -- are never seen alive again. Targeted killings now claim nine times more lives than car bombs, according to rates provided by a high-ranking U.S. military official, who released them only on the condition of anonymity.
Statistics obtained at the Baghdad morgue showed a steady increase in the number of shootings and other types of targeted killings over the last year, with a stunning spike in March, after the Feb. 22 bombing of one of the holiest Shiite Muslim shrines in the country. The morgue logs every autopsied body, cataloging each death with a folder and pictures of the dead. Two officials at the morgue -- the director and the head of statistics -- provided the numbers and descriptions for this report.
On a recent day, coffins were stacked against the wall outside the morgue, waiting to be filled. Every 30 minutes or so, police officers arrived, unloading more bodies from their pickup trucks. With each new load, crowds of people rushed to look at the bodies, searching for their missing relatives.
The number of bombing victims, who do not normally undergo autopsies, was calculated from daily reports by hospital and police officials between Jan. 1 and April 1. Those reports were conservative, and did not include Iraqi security forces, Iraqis killed by U.S. or Iraqi forces, and Iraqis killed outside the capital.
Obtaining accurate numbers from the Health Ministry or the 18 major hospitals serving Baghdad proves difficult because officials from all tiers of government routinely inflate or deflate numbers to suit political purposes.
Sectarian violence
The figures obtained from numerous other sources, however, show the sectarian nature of a conflict that increasingly targets civilians.
In the Sunni cemeteries serving Baghdad, with a population of 5 million, demand for tombs is so high that gravediggers bury people between old graves or at the edges of the burial grounds. Near the gate of one Sunni cemetery tucked inside the Ghazalia neighborhood, a sign proclaims, "Fee for burial -- only 175,000 dinar," or about $120.
Numbers obtained from officials at the cemetery in the holy Shiite city of Najaf, where the vast majority of Shiites are laid to rest, provided a benchmark to compare the number of Shiite versus Sunni victims in Baghdad.
In the Najaf cemetery, 1,582 people were buried in the first three months of the year. Included in that figure are also unclaimed bodies -- some of them Sunni. The number, although high, provides additional evidence that the majority of the deaths have been Sunni, because the figure is drawn from the whole country and is still less than half the total.
In addition, there are far more Shiites in Iraq than Sunnis -- and so the deaths appear to affect the Sunni population disproportionately.
Numbers are incomplete
The morgue statistics -- 3,472 violent deaths from January through March -- depict a higher death toll in Baghdad than ever before, but even they do not offer the full picture of the violence in the capital.
Because those who die in bombings or are shot during gunfights between insurgents and security forces generally are not brought in for autopsy at the central morgue, they are not counted in its statistics. At least 351 civilians were killed in bombings throughout the capital during the first three months of the year, according to police and hospital reports during that time.
Sunni leaders charge that police and special commandos, who are mostly Shiites, operate death squads killing Sunnis in a campaign of sectarian cleansing. Shiite politicians say criminals steal or buy uniforms, then terrorize the capital in the guise of the security forces. U.S. military officials ultimately lay the blame on the shadowy figure of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, who they charge is trying to provoke a civil war.
After the Feb. 22 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra, the U.S. military began an unprecedented effort to track what it terms ethno-sectarian violence. Maj. Gen. Rick Lynch, the top military spokesman in Iraq, said the military logged 152 such killings in the week ending April 22 -- in what he said was a decline from previous weeks. How the military arrived at the number is unclear.