Militants' photos show Iraq troops massacred

BAGHDAD -- The Islamic militants who overran cities and towns in Iraq last week posted graphic photos that appeared to show their gunmen massacring scores of captured Iraqi soldiers, while President Barack Obama considered a response by the U.S.

The pictures on a militant website appear to show masked fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant loading the captives onto flatbed trucks before forcing them to lie face-down in a shallow ditch with their arms tied behind their backs.

The photographs showed at least five massacre sites, and the number of victims that could be seen in any of the pictures numbered between 20 and 60 in each of the sites, although it was not clear whether the photographs showed the entire graves.

The final images show the bodies of the captives soaked in blood after being shot at several locations.

Chief military spokesman Lt. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi confirmed the photos' authenticity and said he was aware of cases of mass murder of captured Iraqi soldiers in areas held by the Islamic State. He said that an examination of the images by military experts showed that about 170 soldiers were shot to death after their capture.

Many of the captions were mocking toward the victims. In one photograph, showing 25 young men walking toward an apparent execution site, where armed, masked men awaited, the caption read, "Look at them walking to death on their own feet."

Other photographs showed prisoners, mostly young men, stuffed in large numbers in dump trucks and pickups. They appeared extremely frightened.

U.S. State Department spokesman Jen Psaki said the militants' claim of killing the Iraqi troops "is horrifying and a true depiction of the bloodlust that those terrorists represent."

She added that a claim that 1,700 were killed could not be confirmed by the U.S.

Iraqi government officials cast doubt on whether such a mass execution took place. There were also no reports of large numbers of funerals in the Salahuddin province area, where the executions were said to have been conducted.

If the claim is true, it would be the worst mass killing in either Syria or Iraq in recent years, surpassing even the chemical weapons attacks in the Syrian suburbs of Damascus last year, which killed 1,400 people and were attributed to the Syrian government.

Meanwhile, as Obama weighs airstrikes against the militants, he has concluded that any U.S. military action must be conditioned on a political plan to try to heal Iraq's sectarian rifts, a senior administration official said Sunday.

Obama has ordered unmanned surveillance flights over Iraq to gather intelligence for possible strikes on militant positions, the official said. But the White House's emphasis will be on prodding Iraq's leaders to form a new national unity government.

The official said the U.S. has asked Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, to work with the Kurds to persuade the disaffected Sunni minority that the next government will be an "ally, not an adversary." All three groups must be adequately represented in Baghdad, he said.

The president's two-track response, the official said, stems from his belief that military strikes on radical Sunni militants, absent parallel measures to overhaul Iraq's government, will hand the country over to competing Shiite, Kurdish and Sunni fighters.

A military official said about 150 Marines have been sent to Baghdad to help with U.S. Embassy security.

The State Department issued a travel warning for Iraq on Sunday night that cautioned U.S. citizens to avoid "all but essential travel to Iraq."

"Baghdad International Airport has been struck by mortar rounds and rockets, and the Mosul International Airport has been the target of militant assaults," the travel warning added.

In a statement, Psaki said much of the U.S. Embassy staff will stay in place even as parts of the country experience instability and violence. She did not say the number of personnel affected. The embassy is within Baghdad's Green Zone. It has about 5,000 personnel, making it the largest U.S. diplomatic post in the world.

"Overall, a substantial majority of the U.S. Embassy presence in Iraq will remain in place, and the embassy will be fully equipped to carry out its national security mission," she said.

Some embassy staff members have been temporarily moved elsewhere to more stable places at consulates in Basra in the Shiite-dominated south of Iraq and Irbil in the Kurdish semiautonomous region in northeastern Iraq and to Jordan, she said.

U.S. travelers in the country were encouraged to exercise caution and limit travel to certain parts of Iraq.

"Due to the relocation of personnel from Baghdad, the embassy will only be restricted in its ability to offer all consular services; but emergency services are always available to U.S. citizens in need at any embassy or consulate anywhere in the world," Psaki said.

On Friday, U.N. human-rights chief Navi Pillay warned against "murder of all kinds" and other war crimes in Iraq, saying the number killed in recent days may run into the hundreds. She said in a statement that her office had received reports that militants rounded up and killed Iraqi soldiers as well as 17 civilians in a single street in Mosul. Her office also heard of "summary executions and extrajudicial killings" after Islamic State militants overran Iraqi cities and towns.

Thousands of Shiites are already heeding a call from their most revered spiritual leader to take up arms against the Sunni militants who have swept across the north in the worst instability in Iraq since the U.S. withdrawal in 2011.

The Islamic State has vowed to take the battle to Baghdad and cities farther south housing revered Shiite shrines, but its advance to the south seems to have stalled in recent days.

Although the government bolstered defenses around Baghdad, a series of explosions inside the capital killed at least 19 people and wounded more than 40, police and hospital officials said.

In a fiery speech to volunteers south of Baghdad, al-Maliki vowed to regain territory captured last week by the militants.

"We will march and liberate every inch they defaced, from the country's northernmost point to the southernmost point," he said. The volunteers responded with Shiite chants.

On Saturday, hundreds of armed Shiite men paraded through the streets of Baghdad in response to a call by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani for Iraqis to defend their country. Thousands of other Shiites have also volunteered to join the fight against the militants, also in response to al-Sistani's call.

Armed police, including SWAT teams, were seen at checkpoints in Baghdad, searching vehicles and checking drivers' documents. Security was particularly tight on the northern and western approaches, the likely targets of Islamic fighters on the capital.

Sunday, the city had sparse traffic and few shoppers in commercial areas. At a popular park along the Tigris River, only a fraction of the thousands who usually head there were present in the evening. In the commercial Karada district in central Baghdad, many of the sidewalk hawkers who sell shoes, toys and clothes were also absent.

According to police and hospital officials, a car bomb in the city center killed 10 and wounded 21. After nightfall, another explosion hit the area, killing two and wounding five. A third went off near a falafel shop in the sprawling Sadr City district, killing three and wounding seven. Late Sunday, a fourth blast in the northern Sulaikh district killed four and wounded 12.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Suicide and car bombings in recent months have mostly targeted Shiite neighborhoods or security forces.

The USS George H.W. Bush arrived in the Persian Gulf as Obama considers possible military options, although he has ruled out putting American troops on the ground in Iraq.

Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. John Kirby has said the move will give Obama additional flexibility if military action were required to protect American citizens and interests in Iraq.

In neighboring Iran, the acting commander of the Islamic Republic's army ground forces, Gen. Kiomars Heidari, said Iran has increased its defenses along its western border with Iraq, though there was no immediate threat to the frontier.

Information for this article was contributed by Qassim Abdul-Zahra, Sameer N. Yacoub, Adam Schreck, Raphael Satter, Kimberly Hefling and Amir Vahdat of The Associated Press and by Rod Nordland, Alissa J. Rubin, Tim Arango, Mark Landler and Michael R. Gordon of The New York Times.

A Section on 06/16/2014

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