US says report of 20 beheaded bodies in Iraq false

BAGHDAD, June 30 (Reuters) Media reports attributed to Iraqi police of 20 decapitated bodies found south of Baghdad this week were untrue and may have been planted by insurgents to provoke revenge attacks, the US military said today.

''Coalition and Iraqi officials began investigating to determine if the reports were true. Ultimately it was concluded the reports were false,'' the military said in a statement.

Local police, speaking off the record, said on Thursday that the bodies had been found dumped on the banks of the Tigris River near Salman Pak, about 30 km south of Baghdad.

But the Iraqi Interior Ministry later said that a team sent to the location with US forces had found nothing.

''(Insurgents) are known for purposefully providing false information to the media to incite violence and revenge killings, and they may well have been the source of this misinformation,'' the military said.

Verifying reports in Iraq is very hard for journalists, who have been systematically targeted by different militant groups and rely extensively on local sources for information.

Paris-based press freedom advocates Reporters Without Borders estimate that over 180 journalists and media assistants have been killed since the US-led invasion in March 2003, making Iraq the most dangerous place in the world to report.

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