Wave of Bodies in Baghdad's Central Morgue
Signals a Stepped-Up Pace of Sectarian Killing
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and SAHAR NAGEEB
The New York Times
July 5, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 4 — The central morgue said Tuesday that it received 1,595 bodies last month, 16 percent more than in May, in a tally that showed the pace of killing here has increased since the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq.
Baghdad, home to one-fourth of Iraq's population, has slowly descended into a low-grade civil war in some neighborhoods, with Sunni and Shiite militias carrying out systematic sectarian killings that clear whole city blocks.
To a large extent, control of the capital means control of the country, and Baghdad is at the center of efforts by American military officials and the new Iraqi government to stem the tide of violence.
After Mr. Zarqawi was killed on June 7 in an American airstrike, a security plan was put into effect, with thousands of troops operating new checkpoints throughout the city, but it has had little effect.
A significant segment of the 31,000 American troops here were drawn into a search for two American soldiers south of Baghdad soon after the plan was announced. The two were found dead, their bodies mutilated.
The American ambassador here, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, told the BBC on Tuesday that killing Mr. Zarqawi had not made Iraq safer.
"In terms of the level of violence, it has not had any impact at this point," Mr. Khalilzad said. "As you know, the level of violence is still quite high."
The morgue, which takes bodies from Baghdad and its outskirts, offers a rough measure of the violence. The toll for last month, provided by the morgue deputy, who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the news media, was roughly double the 879 bodies the morgue received in June 2005.
American officials say civilians bear the brunt of the killing, representing 70 percent of all deaths.
At least 10 Iraqis were killed in violence across Iraq, the authorities reported. In the most lethal attack, 7 Iraqis were killed and 33 were wounded when a car bomb blew up on a street lined with butcher shops in Mosul, in the north, the police said.
The bomb hit while a butcher, Saed Mahfoud, was sitting in his shop.
"I woke up in the hospital, and the only thing I remember is the sound of the police siren," Mr. Mahfoud said.
Also Tuesday, mortars hit Mansour, a well-off neighborhood in Baghdad, wounding nine people, including four police officers.
The morgue stank of bodies. Visitors burned paper and wood in the parking lot to mask the smell. The reception area was full with 40 Iraqis, mostly women, standing and sitting on the ground, waiting to look at bodies and photographs of bodies.
Around 11 a.m., three pickup trucks arrived with a total of at least eight bodies. Morgue workers and police officers put them in body bags and took them inside.
Officials in Baghdad receive 10 to 20 bodies a day, mostly victims of killings by Sunni and Shiite militias, American officials said.
A government official said in an interview last week that Sunni Arabs accounted for 30 percent of the bodies found, a disproportionately high number compared with their 20 percent share of the population.
Tallies differ, depending on the ministry issuing them. The Associated Press reported Monday that tallies from the Defense, Interior and Health Ministries put the total deaths last month at 1,006.
The sight of bodies is no longer a surprise. An Iraqi woman said she had reached the front of a gasoline line in Shaab, a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in northern Baghdad, when a police pickup drove in front of her to fill up. She said she smelled a foul odor and then noticed a pile of bodies in the back.
In another high-profile kidnapping on Tuesday morning, gunmen dressed in army and police uniforms seized Deputy Electricity Minister Raad al-Harith and 19 of his bodyguards in a heavily Shiite neighborhood, Talbiya, in northern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said.
It was not clear how the guards were overtaken, but Reuters reported that they had not resisted, apparently believing that the seizure was an official operation. The attackers arrived in seven cars, the news agency reported.
On Tuesday night, Reuters reported that Mr. Harith and seven bodyguards had been freed in the same area. It was not clear what happened to the other 12 bodyguards.
The seizure comes three days after a Sunni legislator, Tayseer Najah al-Mashhadani, and eight of her bodyguards were kidnapped in a northern district bordering the Sadr City district of Baghdad. Iraqi authorities said they had no new information on Ms. Mashhadani's whereabouts.
An Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Mosul for this article.
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and SAHAR NAGEEB
The New York Times
July 5, 2006
BAGHDAD, Iraq, July 4 — The central morgue said Tuesday that it received 1,595 bodies last month, 16 percent more than in May, in a tally that showed the pace of killing here has increased since the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq.
Baghdad, home to one-fourth of Iraq's population, has slowly descended into a low-grade civil war in some neighborhoods, with Sunni and Shiite militias carrying out systematic sectarian killings that clear whole city blocks.
To a large extent, control of the capital means control of the country, and Baghdad is at the center of efforts by American military officials and the new Iraqi government to stem the tide of violence.
After Mr. Zarqawi was killed on June 7 in an American airstrike, a security plan was put into effect, with thousands of troops operating new checkpoints throughout the city, but it has had little effect.
A significant segment of the 31,000 American troops here were drawn into a search for two American soldiers south of Baghdad soon after the plan was announced. The two were found dead, their bodies mutilated.
The American ambassador here, Zalmay M. Khalilzad, told the BBC on Tuesday that killing Mr. Zarqawi had not made Iraq safer.
"In terms of the level of violence, it has not had any impact at this point," Mr. Khalilzad said. "As you know, the level of violence is still quite high."
The morgue, which takes bodies from Baghdad and its outskirts, offers a rough measure of the violence. The toll for last month, provided by the morgue deputy, who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to talk to the news media, was roughly double the 879 bodies the morgue received in June 2005.
American officials say civilians bear the brunt of the killing, representing 70 percent of all deaths.
At least 10 Iraqis were killed in violence across Iraq, the authorities reported. In the most lethal attack, 7 Iraqis were killed and 33 were wounded when a car bomb blew up on a street lined with butcher shops in Mosul, in the north, the police said.
The bomb hit while a butcher, Saed Mahfoud, was sitting in his shop.
"I woke up in the hospital, and the only thing I remember is the sound of the police siren," Mr. Mahfoud said.
Also Tuesday, mortars hit Mansour, a well-off neighborhood in Baghdad, wounding nine people, including four police officers.
The morgue stank of bodies. Visitors burned paper and wood in the parking lot to mask the smell. The reception area was full with 40 Iraqis, mostly women, standing and sitting on the ground, waiting to look at bodies and photographs of bodies.
Around 11 a.m., three pickup trucks arrived with a total of at least eight bodies. Morgue workers and police officers put them in body bags and took them inside.
Officials in Baghdad receive 10 to 20 bodies a day, mostly victims of killings by Sunni and Shiite militias, American officials said.
A government official said in an interview last week that Sunni Arabs accounted for 30 percent of the bodies found, a disproportionately high number compared with their 20 percent share of the population.
Tallies differ, depending on the ministry issuing them. The Associated Press reported Monday that tallies from the Defense, Interior and Health Ministries put the total deaths last month at 1,006.
The sight of bodies is no longer a surprise. An Iraqi woman said she had reached the front of a gasoline line in Shaab, a predominantly Shiite neighborhood in northern Baghdad, when a police pickup drove in front of her to fill up. She said she smelled a foul odor and then noticed a pile of bodies in the back.
In another high-profile kidnapping on Tuesday morning, gunmen dressed in army and police uniforms seized Deputy Electricity Minister Raad al-Harith and 19 of his bodyguards in a heavily Shiite neighborhood, Talbiya, in northern Baghdad, an Interior Ministry official said.
It was not clear how the guards were overtaken, but Reuters reported that they had not resisted, apparently believing that the seizure was an official operation. The attackers arrived in seven cars, the news agency reported.
On Tuesday night, Reuters reported that Mr. Harith and seven bodyguards had been freed in the same area. It was not clear what happened to the other 12 bodyguards.
The seizure comes three days after a Sunni legislator, Tayseer Najah al-Mashhadani, and eight of her bodyguards were kidnapped in a northern district bordering the Sadr City district of Baghdad. Iraqi authorities said they had no new information on Ms. Mashhadani's whereabouts.
An Iraqi employee of The New York Times contributed reporting from Mosul for this article.
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