13 are found slain west of Baghdad

Sunni politician is among victims of execution-style killings

BAGHDAD -- A Sunni politician and 12 other men, including some of the politician's relatives, were killed execution-style over the weekend just west of Baghdad.

The slayings in an area formerly controlled by insurgents -- and one of the key gateways to the capital -- ignited fears that extremists could be making inroads in Sunni Muslim enclaves, as U.S. troops withdraw and the ranks of local paramilitary forces established by Americans thin out.

Iraqi officials did not blame a specific group for the slayings, but area residents said they bore the signature of al-Qaeda in Iraq. The dogmatic Sunni group lost the ability to operate freely in Baghdad and its suburbs after the 2007 surge of U.S. troops and the formation of the paramilitary groups, known as the Sons of Iraq.

Iraqi authorities said a band of assailants wearing Iraqi army uniforms kidnapped the men Sunday around midnight from their homes in the villages of Abid and Khodeir Zaidan in the Abu Ghraib district.

Hamid Salam Thamir, the head of the Iraqi Islamic Party in the area, was among those killed, officials said.

The assailants stole the vehicle of one of the victims, used guns with silencers to shoot them in the head and chest, and dumped their bodies in a nearby cemetery, Iraqi officials said. The victims were blindfolded and their hands tied behind their backs, officials said.

The Baghdad security command issued a statement assuring relatives of the victims that investigators would "capture the criminals."

The statement said the suspected culprits live in the area where the slayings occurred.

An Iraqi police official said five of the bodies were beheaded, but his account could not be corroborated and other officials said it was not true.

Ihab al-Sobai, a spokesman for the local Sons of Iraq, disputed reports that the group's fighters were among those slain.

He said a team of Iraqi and American soldiers had been in the villages raiding houses the night before the slayings.

"The people here are saying al-Qaeda is behind this," he said.

Sobai said several paramilitary members have walked off their checkpoints out of frustration over late wages and over what he described as a contentious relationship with the Iraqi army commanders who began supervising the members after the U.S. military stopped paying them this winter. "Many of them feel very tired," he said. "There's no payment, so they have just left."

Sunni leaders said Sunday's slayings and recent similar ones in Sunni suburbs could be retribution for battles in which the Sunni paramilitary fighters had the backing of the U.S. military. Others said they could be intended to stoke sectarian violence and deeper animosity toward Iraqi security forces in Sunni areas.

"The main goal is they want the sectarian war to erupt again," Sunni lawmaker Omar Mashhadani said. "They kill good people who fought al-Qaeda, and we feel very sorry because Iraqi security forces don't pay attention to what is happening to them."

Special correspondents Aziz Alwan and Qais Mizher in Baghdad and a special correspondent in Abu Ghraib contributed to this report.