The bodies of eight Iraqi border guards, blindfolded and with their hands bound behind their backs, were found near the Saudi border in western Iraq today.
Police said the bodies were found some 250 km west of the Shi'ite Muslim holy city of Kerbala. There was no immediate information on who had shot them.
It was the latest in a series of similar grisly discoveries of people who may have been executed by insurgents battling the Shi'ite- and Kurdish-led government and US-led forces in Iraq.
Iraqi security forces have frequently been targeted by the insurgents who Washington says include hundreds of foreign fighters from Arab countries such as Egypt, Syria, Sudan and Saudi Arabia.
US forces have launched an offensive in Iraq's huge western province of Anbar to cut what they say is the main transit route for such fighters from Syria.