Bodies Of Kurdish Fighters Who Collaborated With US Found In Mosul

Photo From http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/134B327A-9FCF-4BA0-9688-E1D38D991813.htm
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Scraps of paper left on the three bodies said they were peshmerga, or Kurdish militiamen. Many of the region's recruits to the Iraqi National Guard, Iraq's newly formed civil defence force, are peshmerga.

Mosul remains on edge after anti-American insurgents targeted the police force there a week ago, and there have been several reports of captured members of the new US-backed security forces being killed.

A group led by al-Qa'eda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said in a statement dated November 20 that it had killed members of the Iraqi National Guard at a base northwest of Mosul, but it was not clear whether the claim referred to the latest killings.

Tensions between Arabs and their Kurdish neighbours from the northern mountains have risen in Mosul recently with the arrival of ethnically Kurdish National Guards to replace police who fled their posts during the rebel offensive this month.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/11/21/uirq.xml&sSheet=/portal/2004/11/21/ixportaltop.html

DUBAI, Nov 20 (AFP) - 17h34 - An Islamist group linked to the Al-Qaeda network said it has killed two Iraqi Kurds it accused of being spies, in a website statement Saturday that showed pictures of the pair’s identity cards.

"Your mujahedeen brothers of the Ansar Al-Sunna Army captured two members of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (and) having interrogated them continuously for seven days, they confessed to being spies working for a special network whose job it is to monitor mujahedeen movements in Mosul," the statement said.

US-led forces have been chasing down insurgents in the Kurdish city of Mosul since rebels over-ran police stations there more than a week ago.

The statement was accompanied by photos of two blindfolded men holding their identity cards and kneeling in front of a banner of the Army of Ansar al-Sunna. "The two spies supplied the information they obtained to their American masters who then carried out raids on mujahedeen houses to arrest them."

"After interrogation, they were shot," it continued, adding that the group would "work relentlessly toward the physical liquidation of the network’s other members".

Ansar Al-Sunna, which presents itself as an alliance of several Islamist groups, has claimed several attacks in Iraq, including an attack on Iraqi Kurdistan that killed over 100 people in February and the killing of 12 Nepalese hostages in August.

http://www.kurdmedia.com/news.asp?id=5807

Mosul, Iraq - The bodies of nine Iraqi soldiers, each shot in the back of the head, were found in Mosul, the country's third largest city, the US military said on Sunday.

The northern Iraqi city remains on edge after anti-American insurgents routed the police force a week ago. There have been other reports of captured members of Iraq's new US-backed security forces being killed.

The nine dead soldiers were found in the city centre on Saturday by US troops, the military said in a statement.

"Each of the victims was found with a gunshot wound to the back of the head," it said, giving no further details.

The Army of Ansar al-Sunna, a militant group, posted a video on its website on Saturday showing a masked man shooting two others in the back of the head. It said it had killed two Kurds from the government-allied Kurdistan Democratic Party who had been providing intelligence for US troops in Mosul.

Ethnic tensions between Arabs and their Kurdish neighbours from the northern mountains have risen in Mosul recently with the arrival of Kurdish National Guards to replace police who fled their posts during the rebel offensive this month.

Another Sunni Muslim group led by Jordanian al Qaeda ally Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said it publicly beheaded two officers from Iraq's paramilitary National Guard in Mosul on Thursday.

A headless body was recovered by US forces in the restive south of the city that day, where residents said they had heard of two National Guard officers being killed. The US military has said nothing linked the body to the security forces.

US soldiers last week also said they found at least three headless and dismembered corpses near a police station in the northeast of the city and believed they were of police officers killed after rebels sacked the station.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=3&art_id=qw1101029941470B262