IRAQ: Some 1,600 bodies were taken to Baghdad's morgue in October as insurgent attacks and sectarian violence surged during the holy month of Ramadan, an official at the morgue said on Sunday.
The tally is the highest since July, when the toll hit 1,815, and was up 10 per cent from 1,450 in September.
The source said 85 per cent of the deaths in October were violent. Most of those were men with gunshot wounds.
The February bombing of the Shia Golden Mosque at Samarra triggered an explosion of sectarian violence, especially in the capital, and US commanders reported another spike during the holy month of Ramadan.
National statistics issued last week by the interior ministry for Iraqis killed in political violence, as opposed to incidents put down to crime, put civilian deaths last month at 1,289, up 18 per cent from 1,089 in September, itself a record for this particular series of data.
Such figures have become increasingly controversial, notably since the UN put the monthly civilian toll at more than 3,000 this summer and a group of medical statisticians estimated that over 650,000 may have died since the US invasion of 2003.