Iraqis tortured by government death squads

Hundreds of Iraqis are being tortured to death or summarily executed each month by death squads attached to the Interior Ministry in Baghdad, the UN's former human rights chief in Iraq has told The Independent on Sunday.

The death squads' activities are contributing to sectarian violence, which claimed at least 50 lives yesterday. A car bomb in the Shia holy city of Karbala killed at least eight people, and at least three members of the security forces died in an attack on the funeral of a murdered TV reporter.