Over 1300 Dead in Sectarian Violence

"Ellen Knickmeyer and Bassam Sebti of the WaPo reports that since last Wednesday rioters and militiamen have killed over 1300 Iraqis on a sectarian basis. They add,

' Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday -- blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound -- and many of them had wound up at the morgue after what their families said was their abduction by the Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. '

The pace of killing slowed on Monday despite the end of the curfew, but there was still some violence."
Juan Cole