17 corpses found buried beneath two schoolyards

BAGHDAD - Police in Ramadi uncovered 17 decomposing corpses buried beneath two schoolyards in a district that until recently was under the control of al-Qaeda in Iraq fighters. .

The adult bodies were discovered in the Anbar provincial capital after students and teachers returned to the schools a week ago and noticed a growing putrid odor and stray dogs digging in the area, Police Maj. Laith al-Dulaimi said.

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 insurgents and al-Qaeda fighters until recently, when the U.S. forces in the region and the Iraqi government successfully negotiated with many local tribal leaders to split them off from the more extreme insurgent groups.

Thousands of young Sunni men have joined the police force in Anbar province and have taken up the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq, the umbrella organization that includes al-Qaeda.

Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, said his government was talking with Sunni insurgent groups, including members of Saddam Hussein's former regime, as he struggled to reconcile disaffected and violent bands of fighters.

And in separate attempts to ease sectarian divisions, a group of senior Sunni Muslim clerics visited Iraq's top Shiite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, in the holy city of Najaf. They emerged from the meeting and said followers of the two sects were "brothers."

Maliki did not name the groups with which his government was in contact but said he hoped the discussions would lead to reconciliation during a major meeting on Iraq scheduled for May 3-4 in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik.

"We are having meetings with groups that are not part of the political process,"Maliki told reporters at his office in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone. ". . . They asked us not to reveal their names."

Meanwhile, hundreds of residents of Basra, Iraq's second-largest city, crowded into a huge tent erected yesterday in front of the governor's office for the start of a three-day sit-in to demand his resignation.

"This governor is a hypocrite. We want him to come out!" the angry mob shouted.

"We demand the Basra governor resign," read a banner hung from the tent. Gov. Mohammed al-Waili was not believed to be in the building.

The peaceful sit-in began a day after thousands of people paraded from a downtown mosque to Waili's office in a demonstration that defied orders from Baghdad officials. Residents of Basra, 340 miles southeast of Baghdad, have long complained of poor city services - garbage pickup, water and electricity.

Demands for Waili's ouster were thought to stem from political disagreements as well. He is a member of a rival Shiite faction to that of radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, who commands tremendous influence over Iraq's majority Shiites.

At least 84 people were killed or found dead across Iraq yesterday.

Shiite death squads appear to be on

the move again, after 25 bodies, most of them tortured, were found dumped in Baghdad yesterday.

In addition to the deaths in Baghdad and Ramadi, officials reported at least 42 other people were killed or found dead across Iraq yesterday in nearly two dozen violent incidents at sites that included Mosul, Fallujah, Baqubah and Tal Afar.

And Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that the United States would pursue diplomacy - not military action - to persuade Iran to halt what he said was a flow of arms into Iraq and Afghanistan.

- Associated PressEndText