On Sunday, August 5, the Reuters News Service reported the following:

BAGHDAD, Aug 5 (Reuters) – Iraqi police said on Sunday they had found 60 decomposed bodies dumped in thick grass in Baquba, north of Baghdad.

There was no indication of how the 60 people had been killed, police said. Baquba is the capital of volatile Diyala province, where thousands of extra U.S. and Iraqi soldiers have been sent to stem growing violence.

The story was reported on AlertNet, which is part of the Reuters Foundation, dedicated to “Alerting Humanitarians to Emergencies”. There’s just one problem: The story is false. Bob Owens contacted Major Rob Parke of the US Army, who told him:

Bob,

This story is false. We have had coalition soldiers looking for the last two days at the locations that IPs reported these bodies. We’ve asked all the locals in the area and they have no idea what we are talking about. We’ve gone to areas that might be close, gone to suspicious locations, all turned up nothing.

As Bob points out, this is the second fake large-scale massacre reported by a major wire service, within the last six weeks. The first, by the Associated Press, claimed that 20 beheaded bodies were found near Um Al-Abeed. Both times the major wire services have been fooled by insurgents disguised as Iraqi police.