Human skulls and clothes found at a mass grave near Samawa

Investigators have uncovered a mass grave in southern Iraq containing as many as 1,500 bodies.

Forensic experts say most of those buried at the site near the town of Samawa, about 300 kilometers south of Baghdad, are believed to be Kurds.

They say the victims, many of them women and children, were apparently lined up in front of the 18 trenches and shot with AK-47 assault rifles.

Officials say the victims were most likely killed during the Anfal campaign of the late 1980's - a drive by Saddam Hussein's regime to exterminate the Kurdish community of southern Kurdistan.

According to international human rights groups, as many as 182,000 Kurdish civilians disappeared during 1988 alone.