BAGHDAD - Iraqi police have found the bullet-riddled bodies of 43 men killed in apparent sectarian attacks, an interior ministry official said Sunday.

He said 28 bodies were found in Baghdad's eastern Kharkh area, while another 15 were recovered from the western Rusafa district.

"All men were handcuffed and shot in the head," he said, adding that the bodies had been recovered over the previous 24 hours.

Hundreds of bodies have been recovered across Iraq over the past few months, mostly in Baghdad, of men killed in tit-for-tat sectarian clashes between Shiites and Sunnis.

Iraq has been engulfed in sectarian violence since the bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in the northern town of Samarra on February 22.

Copyright © 1999-2006 Lebanonwire^®.com. All rights reserved.