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Mass grave in Iraq

MAHAWEEL (Iraq) MAY 14. Villagers pulled body after body from a mass grave in central Iraq on Wednesday, exhuming the remains of up to 3,000 people they suspect were killed during the 1991 Shia revolt against Saddam Hussein's regime. Uncounted bodies remained unearthed at the site, officials said.

The mass grave in a village outside Hillah, 100 km south of Baghdad, is the largest found in Iraq since the U.S. forces overthrew the Government last month.

Hundreds of people from nearby towns and villages watched as sets of remains were pulled from the field and set aside wrapped in plastic bags, sheets and blankets. Some of the bodies' skulls still had tufts of long hair, and officials said they probably were women.

Many onlookers chanted "There is no God but God, and the Ba'ath Party is the enemy of God." Several women held pictures of their missing men.

Rafed Husseini, a medical doctor who is leading the group of local men doing the digging, said a total of 3,000 bodies had either been retrieved or located in the past nine days. About half remain unidentified while the rest have been identified mainly through documents found on the bodies, he said.

The excavation on Wednesday came two days after Iraqis pulled bodies from a newly discovered mass grave near Basra, the country's second-largest city. That site in southern Iraq was believed to contain remains of up to 150 Shia Muslims killed by Mr. Hussein's regime after a rebellion in 1999. — AP

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