Police recovered 18 of an estimated 30 decapitated bodies, discovered by Iraqis northeast of Baghdad, and the search continues for the remaining bodies.
In what is one of the bloodiest episodes in the wave of sectarian killings that are terrorising Iraq, villagers in Mullah Eid reported the cache of some 30 mostly headless bodies.
The bodies were discovered south of the Diyalah provincial capital of Baquba but in the gathering darkness and insecure area, initial recovery operations were difficult.
Another nine bodies were also found in a western Baghdad neighbourhood in a market selling used cars. The bodies appear to have been garrotted elsewhere and then dumped in the open space.
More than 70 corpses have been turning up in Baghdad and its environs every week since the February 22 destruction of a sacred Shiite shrine in Samarra, north of the capital.
The corpses are believed to stem from tit-for-tat sectarian killings between Sunnis and Shiites that many fear may soon boil over into a full-blown civil war.
Contentious raid
Meanwhile at least 16 people were killed during a night raid on a Shiite mosque in north-east Baghdad.
Iraqia, the state-owned television station, showed blood spattered bodies of people from the mosque, many of whom were elderly men.
Identity cards on the corpses revealed one to be a member of the Tanzim faction of Dawa Party, part of the United Iraqi Alliance, and another to be part of a tribal council.
One witness said that US soldiers, backed by Iraqi security forces, attacked the mosque while a ceremony was underway for a man killed three days earlier in an insurgent attack in southern Baghdad.
Sources in the Iraqi interior ministry said however that US soldiers, while conducting a raid on the mosque, came under fire and responded.
The US military said that members of the US special forces were present in an advisory capacity but said "no mosques were entered or damaged during this operation".
It said "As elements of the 1st Iraqi Special Operations Forces Brigade entered their objective, they came under fire. In the ensuing exchange of fire, Iraqi Special Operations Forces killed 16 insurgents."