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October 11, 2006

Death squads and hospitals

Peter Beaumont has a third report from Iraq (for the other two, see here and here), this one on Sunnis changing their names to protect themselves from Shia death squads:

How dangerous a name Umar has become was revealed in April when Baghdad police discovered 14 corpses of young men, killed and dumped by the death squads. All were Sunnis shot with a single bullet to the head and left on a garbage heap.

One other thing united them in life as in death: their first names were Umar. And now other Umars are fearful.

See also this from Fareed Zakaria:
CBS News's Lara Logan has filed astonishing reports on the Health Ministry, which is run by supporters of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. According to Logan, hospitals in Baghdad and Karbala are systematically killing Sunni patients and then dumping their bodies in mass graves.

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