Police in Iraq say that they have discovered the bodies of 60 people, most of whom had been bound, tortured and shot before being dumped in and around Baghdad.
Authorities said that the corpses were found overnight scattered across the capital, with the majority – 45 – dumped in the predominantly Sunni area of western Baghdad. The remainder were found in largely Shia areas of eastern Baghdad.
Separately, a further five bodies, including that of a woman, were discovered floating down the Tigris river in Suwayrah, 40km (25 miles) south of the city, said Lieutenant Mohammed al-Shimari.
The 60 bodies found in Baghdad were bound and bore signs of having been tortured before they were shot in the head, according to officials. Such killings bear the hallmarks of militant death squads, operated by both Sunni and Shia militias, who kidnap people, often torturing them with power drills or beating them badly before shooting them.
The discovery of the corpses, an unusually large number for a single day, appeared to show how such gangs are continuing to plague the Iraqi capital despite a joint security drive by US and Iraqi forces.
The United Nations estimated two months ago that about 100 people a day were being killed in a sectarian dirty war. Such killings have forced tens of thousands of Iraqis to flee areas where they are in a minority.
American military commanders have insisted that the increased presence of troops on the street had reduced the murder rate by more than 40 per cent in August. That figure included individual shootings but not larger-scale attacks such as bombings.
Last week, the UN office in Baghdad said the number of unidentified bodies taken to the city morgue in August fell by about 17 percent from the record month of July to 1,536, according to Reuters. Morgue officials, who have stopped giving data to the media, say that about 90 per cent of the bodies they see are victims of violence, said the news agency.
The Health Ministry has yet to publish full figures for other violent deaths in August but statistics for July put the total at more than 3,000 people, concentrated in Baghdad, where more than one in four Iraqis live.
US officials fear that the sectarian problem has been exacerbated by support from Iran, which it has accused of funding, training and arming Shia militants seeking to undermine Iraq's hopes of stability.
Yesterday, Washington reacted with caution to comments from President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran that he would offer full support in restoring security to Iraq. The pledge followed a meeting in Tehran with Nouri Al-Maliki, the Iraqi Prime Minister.
"All our assistance to the Iraqi people will be to establish complete security in this country," Mr Ahmadinejad told the press conference, according to Iran's state-run news agency.
"Iran and Iraq enjoy historical relations. These relations go beyond from neighbourly ties. Our relations will remain excellent."
Mr Al-Maliki said his visit would be "a turning point in the expansion of relations between Iran and Iraq that enjoy historical and ancient ties".
Tony Snow, spokesman for the White House, struck a sceptical note in commenting on the meeting. "We are still concerned about Iran’s trying to support sectarian elements. But also we understand that Prime Minister Maliki is doing what he needs to as a head of state visiting a neighbour that has some power and certainly some influence, there being a lot of Shia Muslims, including Prime Minister Maliki."
The Islamic republic, which is itself overwhelmingly Shia, portrays itself as one of the strongest allies of the Shia-dominated government in Baghdad after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Tehran vehemently denies the charges of interference and of aiding the homegrown sectarian violence in Iraq.
"The most important thing that Iran can do is not be part of the problem by financing separatist and terrorist groups who are trying to undermine democracy in Iraq," said Mr Snow.
A member of Mr al-Maliki's Dawa party said afterwards that close to the top of the Iraqi PM's agenda had been a request for Iraq and Iran to work together against the al-Qaeda militants - many of them foreign Sunni fighters - responsible for some of the most destructive attacks in Iraq, mostly against Shias.
Today Ayatollah Ali Khameni, Iran’s supreme leader, appeared to further antagonise the situation, by blaming US troops for Iraq's misfortunes and telling Mr al-Maliki that the way to end instability was for American forces to withdraw altogether.
"Part of (Iraq’s) sufferings have been due to the actions of the former regime and part is due to the presence of occupiers in Iraq," he said according to the Iranian state-run agency.
While welcoming the removal of Saddam, Iran has sharply opposed the American military presence in Iraq, wary of having the forces so close to its borders.
His comments came after the announcement that the two countries have reached a deal for developing joint oil fields that straddle their borders, with Iraq eventually to send crude to refineries in Iran for processing, Iraq’s Oil Ministry said.
It follows an agreement reached last month, to aid Iraq in its chronic shortages of petroleum products. Under that deal, Iraq sells crude oil to Iran in exchange for kerosene, with an Iranian-Turkish company to deliver petrol from Turkey to Iraq across Iranian land, according to officials from the Iraqi Oil Ministry.
In other developments in Iraq today, the US military announced the deaths of two more of its soldiers, one in Anbar province on Monday, the other killed last night near Baghdad after his vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb.
Meanwhile, two car bombs and two mortar attacks killed at least 32 people and injured dozens of others. The first car bomb went off in Baghdad outside traffic police headquarters, killing at least 19 and wounding more than 62, according to police. A second bomb exploded next to a police patrol, killing at least eight and wounding 17.
Also in Baghdad, two mortar shells landed on al-Rashad police station in the south east of the city, killing one policeman and wounding two others, said officials. A further two police were killed when two mortar rounds landed near their station in the eastern neighbourhood of Mashtal.
