Diwaniyah - Iraqi police have found 16 headless corpses of men tortured to death near the central Shi'a city of Diwaniyah, a local police officer told AFP on Sunday.

The bodies were packed in black bags and found in the street on Saturday near the town of Shanafiyah, west of Diwaniyah, he said.

Shanafiyah and its outskirts are known hideouts of criminal gangs using smuggling routes to Saudi Arabia through Iraq's vast western desert. - Sapa-AFP