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Mystery shrouds whereabouts of bodies of 54 insurgents said killed by US
SAMARRA, Iraq (AFP) - The US military said it believed 54 insurgents were killed in intense exchanges in the northern Iraqi town of Samarra the previous day but commanders admitted they had no bodies.

The only corpses at the city's hospital were those of ordinary civilians, including two elderly Iranian pilgrims and a child.

US Brigadier General Mark Kimmit told a Baghdad press conference that 54 militants had been gunned down, 22 wounded and one arrested.

But challenged about what had happened to the bodies, Kimmit said: "I would suspect that the enemy would have carried them away and brought them back to where their initial base was."...

... The mystery, which borders on solving a mathematics equation, further deepened with Gonsalves' report.

According to him, a total of 60 militants, divided into two groups, attacked two convoys escorting new Iraqi currency to banks in the city.

Another four assailants in a BMW attacked a separate engineering convoy.

If the US troops killed 46 and captured 11 of them, only three of the survivors would have been left to pick up the corpses. ...