Bodies of 18 executed Iraqis discovered in field

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The bodies of 18 young Iraqi Shiites killed last month while seeking work at a U.S. base have been found in a field near Mosul, police said Thursday, as the Iraqi government extended a state of emergency for a month because of violence ahead of landmark elections.\nPolice said the insurgents shot the 18 men, who ranged in age from 14 to 20, execution style Dec. 8 after stopping their two minibuses about 30 miles west of the volatile city, 225 miles north of Baghdad.\nTheir hands were tied behind their backs and each was shot in the head, police said. All the men were Shiite Muslims from Baghdad's northern neighborhood of Kadhimiya who had been hired by an Iraqi contractor to work at a U.S. base in Mosul.\nThe bodies were discovered Wednesday, the same day a suicide attacker blew up an explosives-laden car outside a police academy south of Baghdad in Hillah during a graduation ceremony, killing 20 people.\nA second car bomber killed five Iraqi policemen Wednesday in Baqouba.\nIn a statement posted on a Web site Thursday, the al Quaeda in Iraq, led by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for both the Hillah and the Baqouba attacks. The United States has offered a $25 million reward for al-Zarqawi's capture.\nThe state of emergency was extended for 30 days throughout the country except for the Kurdish run areas north of the country, a government statement said. The decree includes a nighttime curfew and gives the government additional power to make arrests and launch operations.\n"We expect some escalation (of attacks) here and there" ahead of Jan. 30 elections, Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi said. "This is a precaution to protect the Iraqi people as well as the elections."\nLt. Gen. Thomas Metz, ground forces commander in Iraq, also predicted more violence leading up to the elections and said he couldn't guarantee the safety of all voters.\n"I can't guarantee that every person in Iraq that wants to vote, goes to a polling booth and can do that safely," Metz told reporters. "We're going to do everything possible to create that condition for them, but we are fighting an enemy who cares less who he kills, when he kills and how he kills."\nAs foreign ministers from Iraq's neighboring states met in Jordan Thursday, King Abdullah II tried to temper remarks that reflected Arab fears the elections will produce a Shiite Muslim-dominated Iraq that will align itself with Persian Iran.\nIn an interview published Thursday by Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Rai Al-Aam, the king stressed he was not opposed to Shiites and said his comments that Iran was trying to influence the vote and create "Shiite crescent" had been misinterpreted.\nIran called the remarks an insult to Iraqis. It was the only neighbor that did not send its foreign minister to the meeting, intended to urge Iraqis to defy boycott calls and take part in the elections.\nIraq's foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, echoed Abdullah's claims Thursday, saying the world should not fear that Iraq's elections will set up an Iranian-style government in Baghdad.\n"I believe those fears are exaggerated and misplaced," Zebari told The Associated Press before the ministerial meeting. "We have a political (process) that checks and balances this (domination by a religious group)."\nThe bodies of three Jordanian truck drivers shot in the head were discovered on the outskirts of Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad, an AP photographer at the scene said Thursday.\nA note placed on one of the bodies warned: "This is the fate of anyone who cooperates with the Americans"