British Find Remains of 200 People Near Basra

[thedrifter]

AS SAYLIYA CAMP, Qatar (Reuters) - British forces said on Saturday they had found the remains of as many as 200 people in a barracks near Iraq (news - web sites)'s second city Basra and they were sending in forensic experts to investigate.


Pool television pictures showed dozens of simple wooden coffins and plastic bags full of bones which a military spokesman on the scene said might be from a previous war as they were quite old.


"They discovered some bodies in a barracks between Basra and Az Zubair," a British military spokeswoman at war headquarters in Qatar told Reuters. Another spokesman said the remains of around 200 people had been found in a warehouse.


He said the Third Regiment of the Royal Artillery had made a preliminary search of a compound on the road between Basra and Zubair before spending the night there.


The following morning they made a more detailed search and on opening the doors of one warehouse they came across bags full of bones which the spokesman described as "desiccated."


"They are going to treat it as a war grave. They have sealed the area off and are waiting for forensic teams to go in and see what happened," he said.


It was not immediately clear who the dead might be or how long they had been there but the spokesman noted that it was unusual for bodies to remain unburied given the Muslim tradition of burying bodies within 24 hours of death.


"The discovery was made at the 51st Division HQ of the Iraqi regular army and a special team has been asked to investigate this further," the British Ministry of Defense said.


Sempers,

Roger

[thedrifter]

Human remains 'are Iranian soldiers'

Human remains found in an abandoned Iraqi military base are those of Iranian soldiers killed in the Iran-Iraq war, an Iranian general has said.

Brigadier-General Mirfeisal Baqerzadeh said the bodies were discovered at the base near al-Zubayr in southern Iraq recently after a joint search operation between the two countries.

But, he said, the current conflict had meant arrangements to return the bodies to Iran had been put on hold.

Forensic scientists from the UK are due to examine the skulls and bones, which were discovered wrapped in fragments of military clothing in makeshift coffins, in an attempt to establish their identities

Evidence found at the scene suggests many of the deaths occurred on the premises.

Human rights groups suggest they may even be victims of the 1991 Gulf War.

Hania Mufti, of Human Rights Watch, told BBC News Online that thousands of executions of people accused of plotting against the Iraqi government had taken place since the conflict.

The Iraqi regime has refuted all claims that the skeletal remains are those of executed opponents of Saddam Hussein.

It says the remains are those of Iraqi soldiers killed during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq conflict and had been returned recently from Tehran.

The area has now been sealed off and is being treated as a mass war grave by UK troops.


Sempers,

Roger