There's less killing in Iraq, but more concealment

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http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/holnus/001200712171010.htm

New York (PTI): Violence across Iraq has declined and militias are making more efforts to disguise their grisly handiwork -- burying bodies in shallow graves and dumping them in sewers.

They are no longer boldly advertising their slaughters or leaving bodies in the plain view, Newsweek reports in its upcoming issue.

Robert Lamburne, director of forensic services at the British Embassy, has spoken to dozens of Iraqi policemen and examined bodies -- relatively fresh -- from one of several graves uncovered recently. His judgment: "There's less killing, but there's more concealment".

The magazine says about 600 Iraqi civilians were killed this November against 3000 in December last year -- a sharp decline.

But it also says the problem and the reason no one from US commander Gen David Petraeus to down is declaring victory yet is that those statistics do not tell the whole story.

In the past two months, Newsweek says, more than half a dozen mass graves have been found in Iraq, at least half of them in Baghdad.