The bodies of 18 people kidnapped hours earlier by men in army uniforms have been found north of Baghdad, the latest troubling sign of worsening violence in Iraq.
The killings come amid a surge in violence that has included multiple attacks with victims snatched from their homes, only for their corpses to be found later in scenes eerily recalling the worst of Iraq's gruesome 2006-07 sectarian war.
More than 6000 people have been killed this year, forcing Baghdad to appeal for international help in battling militancy just months before a general election, as official concern focuses on a resurgent al-Qaeda emboldened by the civil war raging in neighbouring Syria.
Early on Friday, authorities discovered the bodies of 18 men, including two tribal chiefs, four policemen and an army major, dumped in farmland near the Sunni Arab town of Tarmiyah, just north of Baghdad.
All of the men had been shot in the head and chest, two police officers and a medical source said.
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The kidnappers, wearing military uniform and travelling in what appeared to be army vehicles, had abducted the men in the early hours of Friday.
They told the victims' families that they were suspects in a variety of investigations who had to be taken away for questioning.
The brutal killings come just days after authorities discovered the bodies of 19 people who had been shot dead in various parts of Baghdad, including eight who were found blindfolded and six whose corpses were left in a canal.
At the peak of Iraq's sectarian fighting after the 2003 US-led invasion, Sunni and Shi'ite militiamen would regularly carry out tit-for-tat kidnappings and assassinations and leave scores of corpses littering the streets.
Many of the bodies were blindfolded and showed signs of torture.
Elsewhere in Iraq on Friday, four people were killed and five others wounded in attacks in and around the restive mostly Sunni cities of Mosul and Baquba, officials said.
Baghdad and Sunni Arab parts of northern and western Iraq have borne the brunt of the recent upswing in bloodshed.
The violence worsened sharply after security forces stormed a Sunni protest camp in northern Iraq in April, sparking clashes in which dozens of people died.
Friday's killings cap a week in which nearly 200 people have died nationwide.
