Mass grave with 11 bodies found in Samarra

SALAH AL-DIN / IraqiNews.com: The Samarra Sahwa (Awakening) tribal forces council found a mass grave with eleven bodies east of Samarra on Saturday, the council commander, Sheikh Khaled Fleih Hassan, said. “The Sahwa fighters unearthed a mass grave containing the remains of eleven corpses in the area of al-Djallam, (25 km) east of Samarra city,” Hassan told IraqiNews.com. “Among the bodies was that of the son of the former chief of the Samarra municipal council, Omar Muhammad, as well as two bodyguards of the incumbent mayor of Samarra, Mahmoud Khalaf,” he added, noting that those eleven had been kidnapped and shot down last year. He said that his forces removed the bodies to the Samarra Public Hospital to hand over to relatives. Samarra lies 120 km north of Baghdad while the province of Salah al-Din is located 175 km north of the Iraqi capital. AmR (P) 1