The bodies of 14 policemen found

Bodies of police are same men seen blindfolded on al Qaeda Web site

BAGHDAD (CNN) -- The bodies of 14 policemen found in Diyala province Friday are the same men who were seen blindfolded on an al Qaeda-connected Web site Thursday, according to a statement released Saturday by the Iraqi prime minster's office.

Friday, Iraq's Ministry of Interior would not confirm that the dead policemen were the same as those claimed to have been kidnapped by the Islamic State of Iraq, a Sunni insurgent group.

The group claimed the men were kidnapped and killed in retaliation for the alleged rape of a Sunni woman -- an attack that Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has said never happened.


"We assure that our armed forces and our security systems will follow the killers and arrest them and hand them to justice to get the punishment that they deserve, and we consider the parties which propagate the lie of the rape responsible for this massacre," the statement added.

In a statement Feb. 21, al-Maliki said that medical examinations proved the woman had not been sexually assaulted.

The woman accused Iraqi security officers in the Adil Sunni district in western
Baghdad of raping her Feb. 20.

Note: Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki is a Shiite, so the Sunni's did not take well to his dismissal of the Sunni woman's claim. There have been other reports of abusive behavior by the police in the recent `surge' of door to door investigation.

Also Maliki has in the past blocked any attempts to break up the ill eagle private Shiite militias - some who are believed to be involved with death squads targeting the Sunni.

Also under Maliki were the barbaric executions of Saddam and his associates (first filming the executions, and second, one person [physically loosing his head while being executed) show Maliki to non-Shiite supporters as at the least undiplomatic.

The problem in Iraq now is the civil war - and the leader is biased to one side. For the country to come together an impartial leader is needed- or we need to move ahead on the separation of territories and the ruling of those territories - to the specific ethnic-religious group that is in majority.

The Kurdistan region is strong proof that this can be an effective stratagem.