The US military in Iraq says it has found five more bodies in the northern city of Mosul, where more than a dozen other corpses have been discovered in recent days.
A military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Paul Hastings said on Wednesday the bodies have not been identified and there is no indication when they were killed. Authorities say most of the 15 bodies discovered earlier this week were Iraqi soldiers.
Meanwhile, more than 5,000 US, British and Iraqi government troops are combing areas south of Baghdad, in an ongoing hunt for insurgents.
US officials say the operation in the insurgent-controlled "triangle of death" is not a massive military sweep like the one recently completed in Fallujah. Instead, authorities say troops are focusing on a series of smaller, targeted raids that are likely to continue through the week.
A senior Iraqi Interior Ministry official says dozens of insurgents already have been detained.