By Bassam Sebti
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, October 7, 2005 10:12 AM

BAGHDAD, Oct. 7 -- Six U.S. Marines died in two separate bombing incidents in Iraq, the military announced Friday.

The six Marines killed by bombs in western Iraq had been taking part in stepped-up anti-insurgent operations ahead of Iraq's Oct. 15 national vote on a new constitution.

The west is a stronghold of foreign fighters and their Iraqi allies, who use Euphrates River towns there as a network to bring in recruits, weapons and money from Syria.

Both of the bombings occurred Thursday. The deaths raised to at least 1,950 the number of members of the U.S. military who have died since the beginning of the war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count.

Meanwhile, Sunni Muslim clerics on Friday displayed the remains of 21 young Sunni men allegedly abducted from their homes by men wearing the uniforms of Interior Ministry police commandos.

The Sunni men, missing since they were taken from their central Baghdad neighborhood in August, were found dead Wednesday in Wasit province, near the Iran border.

Their bodies had been placed in a road. The men had been handcuffed and showed signs of torture, said Muhammed Omran, a worshiper at the mosque where the bodies were displayed Friday before burial.

The discovery was likely to increase accusations of extrajudicial killings by Interior Ministry police, whose ranks are mainly made up of Shiite Muslims. In August, the bodies of 37 Sunni men who had been taken from their Baghdad homes by men dressed as Interior Ministry police were found in a dry riverbed in southern Iraq.

At the prayers, cleric Mahmoud Sumaidaie blamed the "occupation forces and the government" for growing violence that has killed thousands of Iraqis since the current transition government took office in late April. Sumaidaie also accused religious authorities of being silent about the carnage.

Angry relatives wept around the coffins, chanting, "There is no God but Allah." Worshipers crowded around to pray for the dead.

Police confirmed discovery of the bodies to news agencies. A 22nd man, a Shiite, also was found dead with the Sunnis.