Iraqis unearth mass graves

in city where Islamic State

ruled

Th
e bodies are evidence of a massacre carried out by Islamic State militants in June

By Erin Cunningham April 18

2014.TIKRIT, Iraq Saddam Husseins former palace complex here is seemingly

idyllic, its gardens lined with lush palm trees and bursts of bougainvillea. But at the
heart of the verdant compound, diggers are turning over the earth in search of
evidence from what could be one of Iraqs worst atrocities in more than a decade.
Iraqi authorities say that the palace complex could contain the remains of hundreds of
young soldiers slain by Islamic State militants last June. As many as 1,700 Shiite

soldiers from nearby Camp Speicher were killed by jihadists, a massacre seared into
the national consciousness.
Since Iraqi government teams started the excavation this month, they have uncovered
more than 160 bodies of young men, most of whom had been bound, shot and then
buried in mass graves.
[Thousands of Iraqi soldiers are missing, and their families want answers]
For months, relatives have waited for news of their loved ones who went missing at
Camp Speicher. Now the bodies exhumed in Tikrit, which are awaiting DNA testing at
Baghdads central morgue, offer some of the first concrete evidence of one of the most
grisly crimes committed by a group already known for its shocking brutality. Officials
say identification cards found on several of the bodies bear names that match reported
victims from Camp Speicher.
We gave our samples to the morgue, and now we are waiting to hear if they found my
brother or not, said Abdullah Mohammed, who saw his younger sibling, Saad, gunned
down in a video posted by the Islamic State to social media sites after the massacre. In
a telephone interview from his home town in southern Iraq, Abdullah began to cry.
Weve seen a lot of bodies, he said. But we dont know if they are him. The
government hasnt told us anything.
Iraqi forces backed by Shiite militias wrested Tikrit back from the Islamic State last
month, after a weeks-long offensive supported by U.S.-led airstrikes. The jihadists had
seized the city which is Husseins home town last June. In the chaos of the
assault, thousands of recruits from Camp Speicher donned civilian clothes and slipped
away from the base in the hope they could escape.
But they soon encountered well-armed Sunni militants from the Islamic State, who
separated the recruits by sect and hauled the Shiite soldiers off to the vast complex of

riverside villas built by Hussein before he was overthrown in the 2003 U.S. invasion.
The jihadist gunmen spent the next three days in an industrial-scale killing spree that
the United Nations says probably amounts to a war crime. The militants boasted about
the bloodbath, saying they killed 1,700 soldiers, and circulated videos and photographs
of the executions online. Later, through satellite imagery, New York-based Human
Rights Watch estimated that as many as 770 people had been killed at various sites at
the palaces on June 12 and June 13 last year.
Iraqi officials, even months after the assault, admitted that they did not know exactly
what happened to the cadets.
The search
Now, using shovels and scalpels, and taking short breaks for bread and sweet tea,
dozens of government workers are toiling 12-hour days in the heat to get justice for
these Iraqis.
Inside the palace complex, there are 10 locations that officials have identified as
possible mass gravesites. There are an additional three that they say they still need to
test inside the city. The diggers, in bright blue scrubs and surgical masks to block the
stench, have made gruesome discoveries: legs without torsos, tufts of hair and
crumbled bones they collect in clear plastic bags.
[The Islamic State is failing at being a state]
On a recent afternoon, one worker who was digging deep inside a mound of earth and
rocks had just found parts of what he thought was the same body. He struggled to
shove a fibula or shinbone back into a tattered pant leg to keep what was left of
the corpse intact. Another man with a mask and a clipboard walked in a circle around
the newly discovered remains, methodically recording the morbid scene. On the gentle
slope of dirt next to him, a severed pair of legs rested.

This area now is the hardest type of mass grave to dig, said another Iraqi working at
the scene, soil expert Ghanem Abdel Karim. The corpses are buried at random, and
they are under rocks and thick soil. We must make sure we are only digging up one
body at a time and make sure pieces of one body dont end up in the bag of another.
Karim, who works for Iraqs human rights ministry, also helped uncover the mass
graves left behind by Husseins brutal regime. He and his team now search the palace
grounds for dirt mounds and bullet shells, indications of possible burial places.
According to survivor testimony and confessions from militants arrested in the city,
groups of scores of soldiers were killed and buried in different spots, officials said.
Other cadets were shot and pushed into the Tigris River whose banks in Tikrit are
still stained with blood. Some of the bodies later floated downstream, where they were
recovered.
At one site at the palace complex, workers exhumed 50 bodies that had been stacked
on top of one another and then covered in dirt, officials said. Exhumations are now
taking place at a second location: a dry riverbed that cuts through the palace
compound.
Most of the victims have been found face-down, their hands tied and bullet holes in
their heads, said Zaid Ali, the director of Baghdads central morgue. He is sleeping at
the palaces so he can rise each morning and resume supervision of the digging.
Workers have found bodies with identification cards, cellphones and small bills. One
corpse was found with a tiny book of prayers.
But with decrepit forensic equipment and with gunfire and explosions echoing from
clashes nearby the workers say the recovery of the bodies is a painstaking task that
could take weeks or even months to complete.
Its not secure; its a war zone, Ali said of Tikrit, where Iraqi security forces are still

battling the jihadists in isolated areas. So this makes the work much more difficult.
This is a historical moment, Mohammed al-Timimi, an official from the Iraqi prime
ministers office, told the workers at the site. There is no work more honorable than
the work you are doing now.
Mustafa Salim contributed to this report.
Read more:
The Islamic States atrocities
Islamic State appears to be fraying from within
In Tikrit, a celebratory mood but lingering concerns
Erin Cunningham is an Egypt-based correspondent for The Post. She
previously covered conflicts in the Middle East and Afghanistan for the
Christian Science Monitor, GlobalPost and The National.

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