Three more bodies, including Kurd, found in northern Iraq city

MOSUL, Iraq, Nov 25 (AFP) - Three bodies, including those of a Kurdish bodyguard and a member of the Iraqi security forces, were found Thursday in Mosul, the latest in a string of grim discoveries in the northern city over the past week.
They bring to 28 the number of bodies discovered in Mosul in recent days, after US and Iraqi troops launched a vast operation last week to root out the insurgency in the country's third largest city.
Two bodies were found dumped at the Al-Yarmuk roundabout, one of the most active insurgent spots in the city, as US troops were patrolling the area, an AFP journalist embedded with the US military reported.
One of the bodies was blindfolded with a black-and-white chequered keffieh, or headscarf, and carried an ID indicating that he belonged to the Iraqi security forces.
A few meters (yards) away lay the bullet-ridden body of another man. A small embroidered badge bearing the Kurdish flag, which appeared to have been ripped from his uniform, lay on his stomach.
The dead man -- who was carrying a card identifying him as a bodyguard for the human rights ministry of the regional government of Kurdistan -- had his head covered with a black banner bearing some Islamic script.
As members of Iraq's national guard, escorted by US troops on foot and in armored vehicles, were lifting the bodies into body bags they were fired on with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire at about 4:00 pm (1300 GMT).
US troops returned fire and one Iraqi national guardsman was wounded in the incident.
A third body was found by national guardsmen near the New Mosul police station.
"We heard the gunshots and went and saw the body dumped by a mosque with a piece of paper on it saying 'this is the destiny of the national guard'," said Saif Salem of the national guard.
On Tuesday, an Apache helicopter located five bodies on the western fringes of Mosul, but they have yet to be picked up or identified.
Before that, a total of 20 bodies, mostly identified as being those of Iraqi soldiers, were found dumped on the streets of Mosul.

11/25/2004 18:35 GMT - AFP