The 17 bodies were found beneath a construction site in the eastern Baghdad neighborhood of Ur, just at the edge of Sadr City. The victims were blindfolded with tape across their mouths and may have been buried alive, according to Iraqi authorities who uncovered the grave in November. The corpses had lain there since at least 2007.

The grisly find was one of six recently uncovered mass graves cited in the newest U.N. human-rights report on Iraq. The five others were found in areas controlled by Sunni insurgents during the peak periods of violence in Iraq in 2006 and 2007, meaning the killers likely had no connection to the Iraqi government. But the grave in Ur was almost certainly the work of killers associated with the Shi'ite Mahdi Army militia, which was supported by elements of the Iraqi security forces.