Iraq digs up mass grave in Najaf

BAGHDAD

A mass grave believed to be of opponents of the Saddam Hussein regime was found in Iraq’s southern Najaf province, according to local authorities on Monday.

“The grave was discovered near one of the complexes under construction in Najaf,” the Najaf governor’s office said in a statement.

The statement said the grave is believed to include the remains of protesters executed by the former regime in the 1990s.

A popular uprising broke out in southern Iraq during the 1991 Gulf War, and spread to the outskirts of the capital, Baghdad, to which the Saddam Hussein regime responded by using force to quell the protests.

Since the fall of the former regime in 2003, international and Iraqi experts have found dozens of mass graves of the victims of the uprising.