The 12 bodies were found in Suwayrah, 25 miles south of Baghdad, at one of a series of metal grates fixed in the river to block debris, according to Mamoun al-Rubaie, with the Kut city morgue.
All were men between 35 and 45 years old and had been bound, blindfolded and shot in the head or chest, Rubaie said, and appeared to have been the victims of sectarian death squads that operate in the religiously mixed communities in and around Baghdad.
Officers also found 15 other bullet-ridden bodies of men who had been handcuffed and blindfolded in six neighborhoods across Baghdad, police Lieutenant Mohammed Khayoun said.
Another 21 people were killed yesterday, mostly in Baghdad but also in Hillah, Mosul and Basra.
The roiling violence, especially between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims in the Baghdad area, has prompted US commanders to order nearly 12,000 more American and Iraqi soldiers into the capital.
The United States has about 32,400 troops in Baghdad and areas south of the capital, of which about 13,500 are in the city proper, Major General James Thurman said yesterday.
US and Iraqi officials have said the reinforcements will focus on about four neighborhoods where Sunni residents do not trust the Shi'ite-dominated Iraqi security forces.
Nevertheless, General Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he would not rule out significant US troop reductions this year. Pace, who arrived in Baghdad yesterday, said such a decision would depend on improvements in the security situation and would come after consultations with US commanders in Iraq.
As part of the renewed security crackdown, the US military said yesterday, 60 men had been rounded up the day before at a funeral in the southern Arab Jabour neighborhood, a mostly Sunni district.
The 60 were believed to include members of an Al Qaeda-affiliated cell that ``specializes in bomb making" and had carried out car bomb attacks in the capital, a US statement said. Women and children at the funeral were separated from the men and the arrests were made without incident, the statement said.
