Fourteen S Asian pilgrims killed in Iraq-sources

KERBALA, Iraq, Sept 2 (Reuters) Fourteen South Asian pilgrims were ambushed and killed on their way to Shi'ite Muslim sites in Iraq, hospital, police and army sources said today.

An official at the al-Hussein hospital in the Shi'ite holy city of Kerbala, where the bodies were taken yesterday, said the five women and nine men were all Pakistanis and had their hands bound and had been shot in the head.

''They were killed three days ago. Some were tortured. One body had been beheaded,'' the official said, citing a report from the hospital's mortuary.

An Interior Ministry source in Baghdad said three of the 14 were Indian citizens. Officials at both the Pakistani and Indian embassies did not answer telephones.

Police and the hospital source in Kerbala said the group was ambushed in a minibus heading through western Iraq from Syria, close to a well-known rest stop on the largely empty main highway across the desert, west of the city of Ramadi.

The area, Anbar province, is the heartland of Sunni Muslim minority revolt.

Shi'ite pilgrims have been frequent targets for attack. Just last week, a statement purportedly from al Qaeda's Iraqi umbrella group urged Sunnis, who form the majority among the world's Muslims but a minority in Iraq, to launch a holy war against Shi'ites.

REUTERS PDM BST1401