PERSIAN GULF

IN RENEWAL OF REVENGE KILLINGS, POLICE FIND AT LEAST 87 MORE BODIES

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Iraqi authorities discovered at least 87 corpses – men shot to death execution-style – as Iraq edged closer to open civil warfare. Twenty-nine of the bodies, dressed only in underwear, were dug out of a single grave yesterday in a Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad. The bloodshed appeared to be retaliation for a bomb and mortar attack in the Sadr City slum that killed at least 58 people and wounded more than 200 two days earlier.

Iraq’s Interior Minister Bayan Jabr, meanwhile, told the Associated Press security officials had foiled a plot that would have put hundreds of Al Qaeda men at critical guard posts around Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, home to the American and other foreign embassies, as well as the Iraqi government.

A senior Defense Ministry official said the 421 Al Qaeda fighters were recruited to storm the American and British embassies and take hostages. Several ranking Defense Ministry officials have been jailed in the plot, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the information. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said yesterday that he had not received anything definitive on the report, but cautioned that earlier accounts are often adjusted later on.

– Associated Press

JORDAN’S MILITARY PROSECUTOR INDICTS AL-ZARQAWI, SEVEN OTHERS

AMMAN, Jordan – Al Qaeda in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and seven other people were indicted yesterday in Jordan’s worst-ever terror bombing, last November’s near-simultaneous attacks at three Amman hotels.

Among those indicted by Jordan’s military prosecutor was a woman who was meant to be one of four Iraqi suicide bombers but fled when her explosives belt failed to detonate, Sajida Mubarak al-Rishawi. Ms. al-Rishawi is the only one of the eight indicted people who is in custody. She will stand trial before Jordan’s military State Security Court.

– Associated Press

MIDDLE EAST

ARCHAEOLOGISTS IN ISRAEL FIND ANCIENT TUNNELS FROM JEWISH REVOLT

JERUSALEM – Underground chambers and tunnels used during a Jewish revolt against the Romans nearly 2,000 years ago have been uncovered in northern Israel, archaeologists said Monday. The Jews laid in supplies and were preparing to hide from the Romans during their revolt in A.D. 66-70, the experts said. The pits, which are linked by short tunnels, would have served as a concealed subterranean home.

Yardenna Alexandre of the Israel Antiquities Authority said the find shows the ancient Jews planned and prepared for the uprising, contrary to the common perception that the revolt began spontaneously.

– Associated Press