Bodies of 50 'Shia hostages' found in the Tigris

Iraq slid towards deepening sectarian violence yesterday after the President announced that the bodies of 50 people, believed to be Shia hostages, had been found in the river Tigris.

Iraq slid towards deepening sectarian violence yesterday after the President announced that the bodies of 50 people, believed to be Shia hostages, had been found in the river Tigris.

"More than 50 bodies have been brought out from the Tigris and we have the full names of those were killed and those criminals who committed these crimes," President Jalal Talabani said.

"We will give you details in the coming days ... terrorists committed crimes there. It is not true that there were no hostages. There were but they were killed and thrown into the Tigris.''

His statement, even if it is not confirmed, will infuriate Shias who have been the victims of repeated bomb attacks by Sunni fanatics. Shia leaders have been restraining their followers from seeking revenge.

Shia officials claimed at the weekend that a total of 50 Shia had been taken hostage by Sunnis in the farming town of Madain on the southern outskirts of Baghdad. The militants allegedly threatened to kill them unless Shias in Madain, where they comprise half of the population, left the town.

The Iraqi security forces surrounded Madain but, on entering, found no hostages or evidence they had ever been held or that there were any gunmen present. Shia officials then said that bodies had been found in the Tigris south of Madain, but residents and police in the area said they had not seen the bodies.

Mr Talabani, one of the two main Kurdish leaders, has a reputation for making explosive off-the-cuff remarks without considering the consequences. The most fanatical Sunni Arab groups have denied that any Shia were killed, saying it was a hoax by the government.

Such is the level of violence in Iraq that even the massacre of 50 people is difficult to establish. Official information is unreliable and journalists cannot enter many areas for fear of being kidnapped or murdered. Another mass killing, the details of which are better established, took place yesterday 140 miles north-west of Baghdad in a sports stadium in Haditha on the Euphrates. The bodies of 19 men were found lying in front of a bloodstained wall.

Residents believe the dead were off-duty policemen, wearing civilian clothes, abducted as they went home for the holiday commemorating the birth of the Prophet Mohamed today. There were no identity documents with the bodies but, in that area, they are more likely to be Sunni than Shia.

Sectarian differences between the Sunni, Shia and Kurdish communities were never far beneath the surface under Saddam Hussein. But his fall exacerbated them. Almost all the exiled opposition parties who returned to Baghdad with the US Army had a religious or ethnic base.

The insurgency is wholly Sunni Arab. Sunni religious fanatics, called Salafi or Wahhabi in Iraq, see Shia as infidels just as much as the US soldiers. From early last year there was evidence of Shia being killed because of their beliefs. The election on 30 January highlighted sectarianism. Kurds voted for Kurdish parties and Shia for Shia parties while the Sunni boycotted the poll.

The Shia parties are now trying to take over the security ministries previously dominated by Sunni, particularly the interior ministry. Mr Talabani said he expected the composition of a new government under Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari to be announced this afternoon.

In the previous interim government, ministers frequently recruited officials only from their own community and party. The health ministry is now full of Shias. When, last December, an auditor, Adil Mohsen Abdullah, revealed unqualified health officials were being recruited through Shia family, tribal or party ties he was sacked.

The sectarian divide is not only widening between Sunni and Shia Arabs but there are also growing differences between the Sunnis and the Kurds. The Kurds are the only community who supported fully the US invasion before Saddam Hussein fell.