Iraq police find 7 bodies, suspected al Qaeda jail

By Sabah al-Bazee SAMARRA, Iraq (Reuters) - Police raiding a suspected al Qaeda hide-out found a secret prison and the bodies of seven Iraqis bearing gunshot wounds and torture marks, Iraqi police said on Saturday. Police said they believed the six men and one woman, only two of whom have so far been identified, had been kidnapped. There was no immediate comment from the U.S. military. Police arrested 11 suspected al Qaeda members in the raid on a house in Benat al-Hassan, on the outskirts of Samarra, early on Saturday, said Captain Muthana Shakir, commander of Iraq's Rapid Intervention Force in Samarra, 100 km (62 miles) north of Baghdad. They found a room sealed by a door with bars in it, marked "Sijin" -- Arabic for prison -- and the tortured body of the woman, who had been shot, lay inside. "We found munitions, weapons,... [read full story]