Michael Ware

Journalist

LDT: Civilian death toll update


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Length: 1:23


KITTY PILGRIM: Michael Ware reports from Baghdad on the latest violence in Iraq -- Michael.

MICHAEL WARE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Kitty, with the end of another weekend and the beginning of another working week, the deaths continue to mount across Iraq. Two police commandos were killed in the capital today in a suicide bombing. Two civilians in a separate mortar attack.

Thirty executed bodies found across the capital today, many showing the signs of torture, bringing the total in the last 48 hours to 90. A dozen U.S. troops were killed over the weekend.

But most significantly was the outbreak of sectarian violence in a town just north of Baghdad called Balad. There, on Friday afternoon, 19 Shia laborers were found with their heads cut off. The largely Shia community responded the next day, killing at least 38 Sunnis. Iraqi and U.S. security forces eventually moved into the town and took control, where order has at least temporarily been restored.

This does not reflect well for the future. This is potentially the face of the sectarian violence to come, particularly as U.S. forces pull back further and further and hand over to what is the shaky Iraqi security forces -- Kitty.

PILGRIM: Michael Ware reporting from Baghdad.