Negroponte flies into Baghdad for talks

Baghdad () US National Intelligence Director John Negroponte met yesterday with the Iraqi prime minister, in the second visit this week by a top US official amid spiralling violence that included seven American deaths and the discovery of 56 bodies bearing signs of torture.

The bodies found scattered around the Iraqi capital were of men between 20 and 45 years old, and all were apparent victims of sectarian death squads, police said yesterday.

All wore civilian clothes and had been bound at the wrists and ankles, police Lt. Mohammad Khayon said. He said the bodies showed signs of having been tortured, a common practice among religious extremists who seize victims from private homes or from cars and buses travelling the capital's dangerous streets.

The US military announced the deaths of three soldiers in Baghdad and four marines in the western province of Anbar.

October was the fourth-deadliest month for US forces since the war began, with the deaths of 105 service members reported.

Last month was also especially bloody for Iraqis, with more than 1,200 Iraqis killed by violence in October, the highest level since AP began tracking civilian deaths in April 2005.

Desperate to flee the carnage, nearly 100,000 Iraqis each month are moving to Syria and Jordan, where their presence has driven up prices for housing, food and other commodities, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said.

The unannounced Negroponte visit comes five days after the arrival of National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, who flew to Baghdad after the Iraqi leadership issued a series of bitter complaints about US tactics in the country.

Al Maliki met with Negroponte in the Iraqi leader's office in Baghdad's heavily fortified Green Zone, according to the prime minister's spokesman.

The spokesman, Yassin Majid, said the visit was part "of a continuing series of meetings between the Iraqi government and the US administration." He did not elaborate.

Relations between the United States and the Iraqi government have been strained in recent days after Al Maliki issued a series of bitter complaints, at one point saying he was not "America's man in Iraq." Negroponte served as the American ambassador to Iraq before Khalilzad.