Extremists' alleged confessions lead to graves

Desperate to find loved ones
In the vast majority of missing person cases in Iraq, relatives are left guessing forever about what happened because Iraqi officials usually lack such forensics aids as DNA and dental records. The insurgents also typically removed the IDs after killing their victims.

But desperate women and children wailed and waved photos, hoping for any sign of their missing loved ones, as they surrounded the Iraqi troops who exhumed the bodies on Saturday.

U.S. soldiers provided cover and helicopters buzzed overhead. Other Iraqi soldiers continued to comb the palm tree-lined desert area, apparently looking for more bodies.

Laman Kamil, a 35-year-old Shiite homemaker, said her brother, Ali, disappeared about six months ago while he was on his way to the market.

"After we heard the news about this mass grave we rushed to the site and I recognized my brother by his blue tracksuit and a broken finger on one of his hands," she said, weeping.

It could not be determined if other bodies had been identified by relatives on Saturday.

Mahmoudiya, a predominantly Shiite city of some 600,000 people, sits in an area about 20 miles south of Baghdad that has a volatile mix of extremists from both sides of the sectarian divide.

Sunnis comprise about 20 percent of its population, but many families have moved to escape the sectarian cleansing campaign, and their houses often were torched and belongings scattered.

The Shiite fighters were angry over fierce attacks by Sunni insurgents, leading to a fierce cycle of retaliatory violence.

The attacks ebbed last year with al-Sadr's cease-fire, a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq and an influx of American troops.

An Associated Press tally shows that at least 662 bodies have been unearthed in mass graves since May 29, 2007 — about half of them this year.

All but the 45 found this week were in predominantly Sunni neighborhoods in Baghdad and al-Qaida strongholds to the north and west of the capital.

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