| At least 500 bodies have been unearthed from a mass grave near the central city of Najaf, in the latest such find in post-Saddam Iraq. An AFP journalist at the site in Makhazen, 20 kilometres from the Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf, saw the remains of about 200 bodies laid out on plastic bags. Bones of women, children, elderly people and soldiers were identifiable by scraps of clothing or identity papers. A committee for freed Iraqi prisoners, supervising the exhumations, said the bodies were of Iraqis executed by Saddam Hussein's security forces, who put down a Shiite uprising in the wake of Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War. More than 500 bodies have been found, a member of the committee said, pointing out that families had already taken away 300 remains from the desert mass grave. |