Police have recovered the bodies of 65 men dumped on streets in Baghdad, it was reported today.

The discovery sparked fears that civil war in the Iraqi capital was escalating, with Sunni Arab and Shia Muslim death squads undeterred by a month-long security crackdown throughout the city.

Police said the victims had been tortured and shot before their bodies were left in mostly Sunni Arab neighbourhoods.

An Iraqi interior ministry official and Baghdad police sources told Reuters 60 of the bodies had been found over the past day. Fifteen were discovered close to the Shia militia stronghold of Sadr City.

"We've had worse days," the interior ministry official said. "Sometimes, we sent ... even 100 to the morgue."

Elsewhere in the city, violence continued, with Iraqi police suffering heavy losses.

A car bomb killed at least 19 people and wounded more than 62 when it exploded near the main headquarters of Baghdad's traffic police department, police said. At least two of the victims were traffic policemen.

In eastern Baghdad, a parked car bomb went off next to a police patrol. Eight people, including three policemen, were killed, with 17 wounded.

A policeman was killed when two mortar shells landed on the al-Rashad police station, in the south-east of the city, and two more died when two mortar rounds landed near their police station in the eastern neighbourhood of Mashtal.

The US military also announced the deaths of two of its soldiers, one in southern Baghdad and one in Anbar province.

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