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Basra warehouse 200 bodies { April 6 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://washingtontimes.com/world/20030406-31735962.htmhttp://washingtontimes.com/world/20030406-31735962.htm
Remains found of 200 men
Paul Martin
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published April 6, 2003
CAMP AS SALIYA, Qatar — British forces in southern Iraq have uncovered the mutilated remains of more than 200 men, many with gunshot wounds to the head, whom they suspect died in a massacre of revolting Shi'ites soon after the previous Gulf war.
The British made the grim discovery in cardboard coffins stacked in a warehouse as they pushed farther into the country's second-biggest city, Basra, and used a tank to pull down a huge black statue of Saddam Hussein.
Coalition forces also bombed the home of the southern Iraqi Gov. Ali Hassan al Majid in the nearby city of Zubayr.
Al Majid ran Kuwait during the ill-fated 1990 Iraqi occupation. He was also in charge of the operation that killed thousands of Kurds with nerve and mustard gas 15 years ago, gaining him the nickname "Chemical Ali."
The coalition forces attacked the house after intelligence suggested he was at home, but additional bombing of the house later seems to have been part of coalition psychological warfare to wipe out signs of the Iraqi leadership.
At the warehouse in Basra, the British had immediate suspicions that the men whose remains were found had been executed. A British officer showed embedded journalists a long list in Arabic identifying the bodies, with the note "bullet-holes in the head" written beside many names.
A bullet-scarred wall appeared to indicate a "shooting platform" from which men were killed, said British officers who made the discovery.
An unidentified Iraqi official said on the Arabic satellite channel Al Jazeera, which still has a reporter in Basra, that the boxes and coffins contained remains of Iraqi soldiers who had fallen in battle during the Iraq-Iran war that ended in 1988. He said the bodies had been returned to Iraq through a border crossing nearby.
"The beginning of the [current] war prevented us from handing the remains over to their families," the channel quoted the official as saying. Some of the remains were wrapped in strips of military uniform.
The International Red Cross, which had been negotiating exchanges of prisoners, confirmed that its medical staff supervised the repatriation of 800 Iraqi prisoners last month, but it didn't mention that any bodies had been returned.
Zubayr was the scene of fierce repression by al Majid, who was in charge of crushing the Shi'ite uprising that occurred soon after the 1991 expulsion of Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
An embedded reporter from the British Press Association wrote: "Human skulls, their teeth broken and missing, looked out from other bags, bundled into the coffins." Cardboard coffins were stacked five deep in the warehouse.
A building alongside "contained apparent cells and catalogues of photographs of the dead, most of whom had died from gunshot wounds to the head," the British reporter wrote. "Others were mutilated beyond recognition, their faces burned and swollen in the faded black and white photographs."
Outside stood what one soldier described as "a purpose-built shooting gallery." The area has been sealed, and a coalition forensic team is to examine the scene today.
Copyright © 2003 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
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