(Washington Post) The bodies of 49 freshly trained Iraqi National Guard recruits, lined up and executed by insurgents, were discovered on a roadside about 75 miles northeast of Baghdad, Iraqi officials said Sunday. The recruits had just departed their base aboard three buses when they were stopped at a checkpoint manned by insurgents dressed as Iraqi police, residents said. Most of the recruits had their hands tied behind their back. The guardsmen were were unarmed because they were going on leave. A group led by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born militant linked to al-Qaeda, asserted responsibility for the attack, according to a statement on the Internet. In a separate attack, Edward Seitz, 41, the assistant regional security officer for the U.S. Embassy, was killed when a rocket or mortar landed in a U.S. military base adjoining Baghdad airport Sunday.
2004-10-25 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive