Iraqis find 20 bodies bound and shot in head

BAGHDAD, Monday (Reuters) The bodies of 20 people, bound and shot in the head, have been found on a military firing range in the eastern suburbs of Baghdad, police said on Sunday.

The identities of the victims were unclear and the bodies appeared to have been there some time, one police source said. They were found on Friday and were now in a Baghdad morgue, another police officer said.

Such finds have become a grim routine of the violence in Iraq. In the couple of months since a Shi'ite-led government was formed, more than 900 people have been killed, fuelling fears that the nation could be pitched into civil war.

Insurgents among Saddam Hussein's once-dominant Sunni minority have stepped up attacks on U.S. and Iraqi security forces and civilians while Sunni leaders have accused Shi'ite militias and government forces of attacking ordinary Sunnis - a charge the various groups and ministries deny.

A leading Sunni organisation, the Muslim Clerics Association, issued a statement on Sunday saying 30 bodies had been found at the firing range in total. It said one body was identified as belonging to a Sunni Arab. It gave no details.

Elsewhere, residents said one of three people found bound and shot dead in a car northwest of Baghdad had worked as a guard for a Sunni organisation whose head is the spokesman for the Gathering of the Sunni People, the umbrella group which is negotiating with parliament on the drafting of a constitution.

In the west of the country, U.S. forces said they killed about 40 insurgents in air strikes on Saturday near Qaim on the Syrian border, a stronghold of guerrillas.

At the scene on Sunday, it was hard to determine the number and identity of casualties. Local people said no fighters were there but prevented journalists from visited some areas.

Also in the west, three civilian drivers were killed on the main desert highway between Baghdad and Jordan when insurgents and U.S. troops exchanged fire, a local mayor said.

Four U.S. soldiers were killed by roadside bombs in two similar incidents south of Falluja, a stronghold of the western insurgency which was captured by U.S. troops last November.

Seven civilians were wounded when a roadside bomb exploded close to an Iraqi army patrol near the town and a police captain was shot dead as he left his home, relatives said.