Iraqi authorities unearthed a mass grave with more than 100 bodies believed to have been killed by al- Qaida militants in Iraq's Diyala province, an Iraqi official said Saturday, Xinhua reported.
The Iraqi security forces discovered the site of the mass grave on Friday at an area south of the city of Baquba, the capital of Diyala province, and initial reports said it contains the remains of more than 100 badly decomposed bodies, an official from the Iraqi Human Rights Ministry told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
"The skeletal remains appear to have been in the grave for a long time," the official said.
Late on Friday, a provincial security source told Xinhua that a team of local health authority escorted by a security force started digging up a mass grave in Abu-Khamees area in south of Baquba, some 65 km northeast of Baghdad.
He said that the discovery was based on information from a resident in the area.
Diyala's authorities have not yet officially determined who might be responsible for the killing and burial of the mass grave, and that the grave site is currently being investigated, the source said.
However, the area where the mass grave was found was a former stronghold of insurgents of al-Qaida which fought U.S. troops, Iraqi security forces and Shiite militias in 2006 and 2007, the source added.
Diyala province, which stretches from eastern edges of Baghdad to the Iranian border, has long been the stronghold of al-Qaida militant groups and hotbed of insurgency and sectarian violence since the U.S.-led invasion broke out in 2003.
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