At least 50 bodies found in Baghdad

BAGHDAD - At least 50 corpses were discovered scattered around Baghdad overnight, police have said.

The bodies all bore bullet wounds and are most likely the victims of the sectarian dirty war raging in the capital between rival Sunni and Shiite armed groups, a police official said.

An Iraqi soldier secures a busy street during a patrol in central Baghdad. At least 50 corpses were discovered scattered around Baghdad overnight, police have said.[AFP]

The daily count of corpses showed a brief lull during a total curfew imposed on Baghdad on Saturday, but since it was lifted early Sunday levels of violence, including bombings, have returned to their previous levels.

On Sunday, police reported a mass kidnapping when armed men, some of them wearing security-style uniforms, stormed a food processing plant and kidnapped 26 people, four of whom subsequently escaped.

It is not known if some of those kidnapped were among the corpses found dumped in the streets.

In other violence, three soldiers from the Iraqi army's quick reaction force were killed in an ambush by gunmen early Monday near Kut city, southeast of Baghdad.

In the comparatively more secure south, Safa al-Ameed, director of the Sadr hospital was shot dead with his driver Sunday night in the Shiite shrine city of Najaf.

The killings are generally believed to be the work of rival Shiite militias vying for control of the south, but police maintain they are just the work of criminals.