US finds 35 bodies in mass grave in Iraq's Anbar
The U.S. military said on Saturday it had uncovered 35 to 40 bodies in a mass grave south of Falluja, in Iraq's Sunni dominated Anbar province.Meanwhile, a fierce shootout in Sadr City reduced the terrorist supply by over two dozen, though since we're creating more terrorists, surely there will be more where they came from.
A Falluja hospital source said 35 bodies had been retrieved and were being finger-printed to establish their identity.
The military said the killings were relatively recent and the bodies had been bound and bore gunshot wounds.
The mass grave was found late on Friday near a place called Ferris, roughly 35 km (22 miles) south of the city of Falluja, after a tip-off from a local, it said.
U.S. troops killed about 26 suspected militants in Baghdad's Sadr City on Saturday in one of the fiercest clashes in the Shi'ite stronghold since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq..
Residents of the east Baghdad slum district, a bastion of fiery Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mehdi Army militia, said the fighting lasted six hours and involved helicopter-fired missile strikes.
The U.S. military said American forces staged two separate raids into Sadr City targeting militants suspected of close ties to "Iranian terror networks" and who were responsible for bringing Iranian weapons into Iraq.
"Coalition Forces killed an estimated 26 terrorists and detained 17 suspected secret cell terrorists during the two operations," a U.S. military statement said. There were no civilian casualties, the U.S. military said separately.
UPDATE: More from Bill Roggio.