(Bloomberg) -- Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said the bodies of more than 50 civilian hostages were recovered from the River Tigris today. The killings are the latest example of a shift in tactics by the Sunni insurgency to attacking civilians.
``They were killed and they threw the bodies in the Tigris,'' Talabani, 72, said today at a news conference aired by al-Jazeera television. ``We have the full names of those who were killed and of those criminals who committed those crimes.''
The dead, 57 Shiite Muslims abducted by Sunni Muslim gunmen from al-Maidan, which lies on the Tigris, 30 kilometers (18 miles) south of Baghdad, included women and children, Agence France-Presse reported, citing an unidentified Iraqi police lieutenant-colonel based in Suwayrah.
The area south of Baghdad is a hub of the Sunni insurgency. The area has become increasingly tense, with retaliatory kidnappings between ethnic Sunnis and Shiites taking place in recent weeks, the British Broadcasting Corp. said.
Insurgents dedicated to derailing the first democratic government since U.S. forces two years ago ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, a Sunni, have mainly targeted U.S. and Iraqi security forces. Newly elected lawmakers are struggling to form a government amid political infighting.
Car Bombings
Gunmen killed 19 members of the Iraqi National Guard in the town of Haditha, northwest of the capital, al-Jazeera reported today. Three car bombings in Baghdad killed at least six people and injured at least 15, the network said.
Also in the Iraqi capital today, a suicide car bomber attacked a checkpoint leading into the party headquarters of departing interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, Agence France- Presse reported. An unidentified Interior Ministry official told AFP that ``there are casualties'' that have been hospitalized ``but we do not have an exact figure.''
In one of the largest mass executions carried out by Sunni insurgents, as many as 49 Iraqi Army recruits were found shot dead northeast of Baghdad on Oct. 24. The terrorist group led by al-Qaeda-linked Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has claimed responsibility for those killings and many similar ones.
In a message posted on the Internet today, Zarqawi denied any responsibility for the al-Maidan attacks.
Civil War
To date, there have been few deliberate attacks on civilians, according to analysts including Stephan Wolff, professor of Middle East politics at the University of Bath and a consultant to the U.K. Foreign Office.
``The insurgency has moved in the direction of a civil war, not in terms of intensity but in terms of who is being affected,'' Wolff said in a telephone interview today from Bath, western England. ``If you look at how the targets have evolved, it's clear they're trying to target Iraqis more than they did before.''
Iraqi politicians and media said on April 15 that Sunni Muslim gunmen were holding as many as 100 people captive in al- Maidan. Iraqi soldiers took the town on April 18 and found no hostages, Iraq's interim government said in an e-mailed statement at the time.
Terrorists
``Terrorists committed crimes there and it is not true that there were no hostages, there were,'' Talabani said. The victims were buried in a cemetery in Suwayrah, 40 kilometers west of Baghdad and close to where the bodies were recovered, after police had photographed the victims, AFP said.
The killing of the civilians at al-Madain is a direct challenge to the new Shiite Muslim dominated government, Wolff said. ``Even with a more or less democratically elected government, the insurgency has not crumbled as some people had hoped it would.''
The United Iraqi Alliance, backed by top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, 75, won the most seats in Iraq's Jan. 30 vote for a National Assembly. Ibrahim al-Jaafari, 58, a member of the Shiite Dawa party, which is part of the alliance, was named prime minister On April 7 and may reveal the names of his 31 cabinet members tomorrow, AFP reported, citing Talabani.
Include Sunnis
Jaafari is trying to include Sunnis, who largely boycotted the poll, in the government and the drafting of Iraq's permanent constitution in a bid to quash violence. His government may also extend an amnesty to rebels, to the same end.
``The Shiite population has shown remarkable restraint so far,'' University of Bath's Wolff said. ``The question is now how long will that last and at what state will they no longer take it.''
