Remains of 12 found in grave

Two of the bodies were beheaded.

BAGHDAD (AP) — Iraqi troops unearthed a mass grave with the remains of 12 people, including a paramedic who disappeared more than a year ago, officials said Monday, the latest grisly discovery in a former stronghold of al-Qaida in Iraq.

Morgue workers wearing masks to protect them from the stench of decomposing bodies dug through bags of bones and tattered clothes as they sought clues to the identities of those killed.

More than 100 bodies, including women and children, have turned up since October in the remote desert terrain surrounding Lake Tharthar, a man-made body of water straddling the predominantly Sunni provinces of Anbar and Salahuddin about 60 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Most of the victims have no IDs, but officials have said they were likely abducted and murdered by al-Qaida in Iraq and other insurgents.

The U.S. military has claimed significant progress since last summer in forcing al-Qaida in Iraq out of Anbar province with the help of Sunni tribal leaders and local officials. Iraqi forces have taken advantage of these recent security gains to step up patrols in areas previously considered no-go zones.

But Lake Tharthar, which used to be a resort area popular with officials under Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-dominated regime, has remained one of the hardest areas to control. The newly discovered mass grave was located between the lake and the Anbar city of Fallujah.

Two of the bodies found Sunday were beheaded, according to an official at Fallujah General Hospital, where the remains were taken. Hospital officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not permitted to release details of the discovery, said some appeared to have been killed as recently as four months ago, while other deaths dated to 18 months ago.

A Health Ministry card that belonged to the missing paramedic provided a rare solid identity clue.

Two other mass graves were found near the lake last month — one containing 40 bodies and another with 29. Twenty-five other bodies, some decapitated, were found in October, and authorities said the victims apparently died within the previous three months.

Authorities have also found mass graves in other parts of the country where violence has decreased. Seventeen corpses were unearthed last month at a site near Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.

The areas in which the bodies were found are both former al-Qaida strongholds, suggesting the terror network was behind the killings.

Shiite militia fighters also abduct rivals and shoot them execution-style, but the numbers of those deaths have fallen sharply since radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr ordered a cease-fire among his fighters last August.