The American State Department says the Iraqi security forces have carried out hundreds of summary executions in the mainly Shi'ite south of the country over the past six weeks.

Quoting Iraqi opposition sources, the State Department spokesman, James Rubin, said the Iraqi authorities, led by Saddam Hussein's second son, Qusay, had also taken hostage more than two-thousand people in the southern marshlands.

Mr Rubin linked the repression to the assassination of two senior Islamic clerics last year.