Eighteen bodies were found in a minibus parking near an intersection in Baghdad's western neighborhood on Wednesday, a police source told Xinhua.

"After midnight, our police patrols found bodies of 18 men and youths who had been strangled to death in a KIA minibus near the Salahudin Intersection in the Ameriyah district," said Captain Ahmed Abdullah from Baghdad police.

The identities of the dead were not immediately clear, he said.

Iraqi security forces have frequently found bodies in Baghdad and other cities as a wave of sectarian reprisal attacks have swept across the country since the Feb. 22 bombing of a major Shiite mosque north of Baghdad.

(Xinhua News Agency March 8, 2006)