¡¡Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

¡¡  BEIJING, Sept. 14 -- Police in Iraq said Tuesday they had found the bodies of 65 men who had been tortured, shot and dumped, most around Baghdad, while car bombs, mortar attacks and shootings killed at least 30 people around Iraq and injured dozens more.

    Two U.S. soldiers were killed, one by an attack in restive Anbar province Monday, and the other by a roadside bomb south of Baghdad Tuesday, the U.S. military command said.

    Police said 60 of the bodies were found overnight around Baghdad, with the majority dumped in predominantly Sunni Arab neighborhoods. Another five were found floating down the Tigris river in Suwayrah, 40 kilometers south of the capital.

    The bodies were bound, bore signs of torture and had been shot, said police 1st Lt. Thayer. Such killings are usually the work of death squads ¡ª both Sunni Arab and Shiite ¡ª who kidnap people and often torture them with power drills or beat them badly before shooting them.

    In the capital, a car bomb killed at least 19 people and wounded more than 62 after it detonated in a large square used mostly as a parking lot near the main headquarters of Baghdad¡¯s traffic police department, the police said.

    In eastern Baghdad, a bomb in a parked car exploded next to a passing Iraqi police patrol in the Zayona neighborhood, killing eight people and wounding 17, the police said.

    Baghdad has been the focus of most of Iraq's violence, and thousands of U.S. and Iraqi forces are taking part in a security crackdown. An average of 51 people a day died violently last month in the capital, according to the Iraqi Health Ministry.

    Some lawmakers squabbled over a resolution demanding a timetable for a U.S. troop withdrawal, and others failed to resolve a deadlock over a Shiite-sponsored bill that Sunni Arabs fear will carve up the country.

    A group of lawmakers tried to capitalize Tuesday on the unpopularity of U.S. troops between many Shiite and Sunni legislators, seeking approval of a resolution setting a timetable for the withdrawal of all foreign troops, which the Shiite-dominated government has so far refused to do.

    The resolution managed to gather 104 signatures in the 275-member parliament before it was effectively shelved by being sent to a committee for review.

(Source: Shenzhen Daily)