MASS GRAVE FOUND IN IRAQ

By Miriam Raftery

Photo: Former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein’s palace in Tikrit; public domain image

April 7, 2015 (San Diego)--CNN reports that a mass gave containing up to 1,700 bodies has been found in the Iraqi city of Tikrit. The bodies are believed to be Iraqi soldiers slaughtered by Islamic State or ISIS forces last summer, according to Iraqi officials.

The grisly find may be just the beginning of evidence being unturned revealing massacres by ISIS terrorists, after the Iraqi government’s forces regained control of Tikrit from ISIS at the end of March.

Reuters reports there may be as many as a dozen mass graves in Tikrit, former hometown of Saddam Hussein, all tied to ISIS.  Some reports indicate the soldiers were murdered with machine guns, then dumped into the graves.

Khalid al-Atbi, an Iraqi government health official, told Reuters that discovery of the first mass grave was heartbreaking, calling the ISIS extremists “savage barbarians.”  He added, “We couldn’t prevent ourselves from breaking down in tears.”