Thursday, April 21 2005 08:04 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Baghdad: More than 55 bodies were fished out of the Tigris river, south of Baghdad yesterday (Apr 20, 2005) as 19 Iraqi Army soldiers were executed in a football stadium, in the latest carnage in violence-torn Iraq.

"They were killed and they threw the bodies in the Tigris ... We have the full names of those who were killed and of those criminals who committed these crimes," President Jalal Talabani told reporters in Baghdad.

Talabani said a new Iraqi Government would finally be unveiled today (Apr 21, 2005), 80 days after landmark elections, but the relentless violence overshadowed the announcement as a string of attacks since late Tuesday (Apr 19, 2005) night cost more than 30 lives.

Police announced the gruesome discovery of 57 bodies of men and children in Suwayrah, some 40 km south of the capital.

They were found in an area downriver from Madain where unconfirmed reports last weekend said Shiite hostages were taken by Sunni rebels. Iraqi officials later denied there had been any hostage-taking.

"The terrorists committed crimes there, and it is not true that there were no hostages, there were," said the President, following denials from officials in the outgoing Government including the Interior Minister.

Police in Suwayrah said the bodies were recovered from the banks of the river between the towns of Al-Wihda and Hafriyah, which are in an insurgent-strong belt south of the capital. The bodies were buried near Suwayrah after their pictures were taken, said police.

And in another grim incident, insurgents executed 19 soldiers in Haditha, 260 km northwest of the Iraqi capital, an Interior Ministry official said.

"These soldiers belonged to a group of 20 men who were travelling by bus to their base in Haditha when they were intercepted" by insurgents, the official told agencies.

"They were taken to the stadium where they were executed," he said. "Only one soldier survived and he has been taken to the town's hospital."

In Baghdad, three car bombs exploded in as many hours, following two similar deadly strikes on Tuesday, as insurgents stepped up attacks in the capital after a relative lull following the January 30 election.

Two people were killed, including a child, and at least five wounded, hospital sources said, in the first car bomb attack in the western district of Amiriyah, that appeared to target a US patrol.

The US military said it had no word of casualties among its ranks.

A second car bomb wounded eight near the Bilat al-Shuhada police station in the southern district of Dura.

At least three more civilians were hurt when another car bomb exploded in Dura, also as a police patrol drove by.

In a third incident in Dura, three people, including a woman and a Shiite religious dignitary, were killed in a drive by shooting, said an interior ministry official.

The Al-Qaeda-linked group of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, in a statement on the Internet, said it carried out the three suicide attacks.

The latest attacks in Baghdad followed two deadly suicide car bombs yesterday. Six people were killed outside an Iraqi Army recruitment centre in Baghdad, and the other bomb killed two US soldiers south of the capital.

On the political front, Talabani said on State-run Iraqiya TV that Prime Minister-designate Ibrahim al-Jaafari would unveil his Government today.