900 bodies found in mass grave in Iraq

Iraqi authorities have dug up a mass grave with some 900 bodies, believed to be Kurds killed under late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's regime in 1980s, a State-run daily said Thursday.

The bodies have been found near Iraq's central city of Diwaniyah, Xinhua reported.

The corpses were found in Al Shanafiyah area, some 50 km southwest of Diwaniyah, capital city of Al Qadsiyah province, Al Sabah newspaper quoted a provincial council member as saying.

"Judicial teams from the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry arrived at the site where the bodies were buried in trenches at the local cemetery of Al Amharri in Al Shanafiyah," Dakhil Saihoud, a member of the provincial council and head of the council's justice and accountability commission told the newspaper.

"Preliminary investigations indicate that the remains are those of Kurds who were killed during Saddam regime in 1980s," Saihoud said, adding that the judicial teams have transferred some of the bodies to forensic laboratories to help in identification.

Mass graves in Iraq became well-known since the US-led invasion of the country, as dozens of mass graves made during Hussein's rule were discovered. But dozens of other graves, discovered later, were made during the chaos and the bloodshed that followed the 2003 Iraq war.