Puzzle over headless bodies found in Mosul

1.10pm

MOSUL, Iraq - The identities of four headless corpses found in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul remain unclear, a US military spokesman said.

"Three decapitated bodies were discovered in northeast Mosul and one decapitated body was discovered in southeast Mosul on Thursday," Lieutenant Colonel Paul Hastings told Reuters.

Responding to a claim by an al Qaeda-allied guerrilla group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi that it publicly beheaded two Iraqi National Guard officers in Mosul on Thursday, Hastings said nothing about the bodies indicated they were security personnel.

Another US officer in Mosul, Lieutenant Colonel Michael Gibler, told Reuters on Friday several headless and dismembered bodies had been found earlier in the week near a police station in northeastern Mosul and were thought to be those of policemen killed by insurgents who sacked the station.

Local officials had no information on Friday's claim by Zarqawi's organisation, which has claimed responsibility in the past for beheading foreign and Iraqi hostages. But local people in restive southern Mosul said they had heard of two National Guard officers being snatched from a car and killed on Thursday.

Large numbers of guerrillas attacked Iraqi police and other US-backed security forces in Mosul this month, putting most of the police force to flight in Iraq's third city. The attacks appeared to be a response to a US offensive on the Sunni Muslim insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, west of Baghdad.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq