Bodies of 18 found by roadsides

By Ned Parker in Baghdad
January 17, 2005

Fifteen members of the Iraqi National Guard were kidnapped and the bodies of 18 executed Iraqis were found on roadsides around the country at the weekend as Iraq's interim government unveiled a security plan for the election on January 30.

An Iraqi militant group, the Army of Ansar al-Sunna, said on a website that it had kidnapped the soldiers, calling the guards "the right arm of the crusader forces".

The soldiers were kidnapped by gunmen wielding rocket-propelled grenades off their bus after they finished work at Al-Asad US military base in the western province of Anbar, police said.

Over the weekend 13 corpses were found near Latifiya, a rebel stronghold south of Baghdad, witnesses said. It was unclear who the executed people were but it appeared most victims had been shot at close range.

The bodies of four Iraqis working for a foreign company were also discovered near Kut, south-east of Baghdad, police said, and the US military also retrieved the body of an executed Iraqi from a river north of Baghdad.

The Government announced it would declare election day a holiday and impose tight restrictions on movement, including a ban on vehicles around polling stations and separate body searches on men and women.

The electoral commission expects 100,000 Iraqi security personnel to be mobilised for election day.

Coalition troops would be relegated to a "supporting role", a US military spokesman, Brigadier-General Erv Lessel said, providing "quick reaction forces and back-up forces".

Agence France-Presse, Reuters