Bodies Piling Up - Who Cares?

Iraqi President Ghazi Yawar has condemned the US air assaults on Sammara as "collective punishment". So much for Iraqis being in charge of things in Iraq...

In 36 hours of fighting in the city, the US military said it killed 125 guerillas and seized 88, and about 70 per cent of the city was under US-Iraqi control.

But the operation brought condemnation from residents about the cost in lives and suffering, and guerillas in the rebel-held city of Fallujah are expected to put up a tougher fight.

Residents said bodies were left in the streets, untended because of the fear of snipers.

Families tried to bury their dead, but the road to the cemetery was blocked off by US troops, witnesses said.

One man who said he escaped the city said a number of civilians had been killed.

The man who gave his name as Abu Qaqa told reporters in Baghdad he had seen stray dogs picking at corpses in the street.

Meanwhile, a hospital near Baghdad said it had received the unidentified bodies of a man and a woman, both believed to be Westerners, found by police. The man had been beheaded and the woman shot in the head.

Could these "Westerners" be the missing Australian hostages? There seems to be suspiciously little interest from the media, the Allawi puppet regime or its US and Australian backers in identifying such bodies.