Death Toll Mounts In Iraq

50 Bodies Found In Recent Days; Government Vows Crackdown

(CBS/AP)  At least eight Iraqis were found shot near a Baghdad dam and a slain Iraqi Kurd was left in a garbage dump in northern Iraq, police said Monday, raising the number of bodies recovered in the past 48 hours to 50. The government vowed to find those responsible, saying insurgents were seeking to exploit sectarian rivalries to stir more bloodshed.

Elsewhere, mortar barrages, bombings and drive-by shootings killed at least 19 Iraqis, including nine soldiers who died when two car bombs exploded in quick succession at a crowded Baghdad market.

Batches of bodies, many blindfolded and bound, were found in various areas over the weekend, from a garbage-strewn vacant lot in Baghdad's Sadr City slum to a Latifiyah chicken farm south of the capital in a region dubbed the Triangle of Death.

The spokesman for Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari condemned the killings and said security forces were determined to catch those responsible.

The attacks "aim to create sectarian fighting in the country because such clashes could bring more recruits to (militant) groups," spokesman Laith Kuba told The Associated Press. "The government is aware of that and will not let this plan succeed."

In other developments:

Anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr came out of hiding Monday for the first time since his fighters clashed with American forces in Najaf and Baghdad in August, delivering a fiery speech demanding that coalition forces leave Iraq and that Saddam Hussein be punished.

Iraq's al-Qaida group claimed responsibility in an Internet statement on Monday for twin suicide attacks that killed four people and wounded 37 in northeast Baghdad the day before. The statement, the authenticity of which could not be verified, said one of the "the heroic lions" of the group killed many when he lunged into an Iraqi police convoy on Sunday that included Diyala provincial Governor Raed Rashid Hamid al-Mullah Jawad. The governor escaped unharmed, according to Iraqi officials.

Interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari paid a surprise visit to the home of Iraq's top Shiite leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in the holy city of Najaf, al-Sistani aide Maitham Faysal said. It was the leader's first meeting with al-Sistani since the new government was formed.

Iraqi forces captured car bomb maker Salim Youssef Khafif Hussein in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, the government said Monday. Hussein, also known as Agha Abu Dawoud, is said to have close links with Abu Talha, the head of operations in Mosul for Iraq's most-wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the statement said.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, returning from a surprise trip to Iraq, sharply criticized Syria on Monday for what she called "unwillingness" to close its borders to terrorists she said are to blame for some of the violence in Iraq. She said the U.S. will try to enlist Syria's Arab neighbors to pressure Syria to clamp down.

The defense for Spc. Sabrina Harman, a former pizza shop manager from northern Virginia, began presenting its case Monday and wrapped up in the afternoon without calling Harman to the stand. She is the second soldier to be tried for allegedly mistreating detainees in the Abu Ghraib scandal.

Few details were available on the motives behind the new wave of killings. Insurgents regularly target Iraqi security forces, government officials and others deemed to be collaborating with U.S.-led forces in the country. Others are kidnapped and killed in attempts to extort ransom. But there have also been a stream of retaliatory attacks between armed Sunni and Shiite groups.

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©MMV, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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