Iraqis find 17 bodies buried at 2 schools
BAGHDAD — Iraqi police in Ramadi uncovered 17 decomposing corpses buried in two schoolyards in a district that had been controlled by insurgents.
The bodies of adults were discovered in the capital of Al Anbar province after students and teachers returned to the schools a week ago and noticed an increasingly putrid odor and stray dogs digging in the area, police Maj. Laith Dulaimi said Tuesday.
He said one body had not yet been recovered from a separate burial site behind one of the schools because authorities feared it was booby-trapped with a bomb.
Ramadi had been a stronghold of Sunni Arab insurgents and Al Qaeda in Iraq militants until recently, when the U.S. forces in the region and the Iraqi government managed to persuade local tribal leaders to stop supporting the more militant insurgent groups.
Thousands of young Sunni men have joined the police force in Al Anbar and have taken up the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organization that includes Al Qaeda in Iraq.
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