The Iraqi police Thursday said they found 32 bodies in execution-style in different parts of the capital Baghdad during the past 24 hours.

"Our patrols collected 32 unidentified bodies in Baghdad's neighborhoods, four of them in Risafa area, the eastern side of the Tigris River and 28 others in the Karkh area, the western side of the river," a well-informed police source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Most of the bodies were handcuffed, blindfolded and showing signs of torture with bullet holes in the chest and the head, added the source.

Also on Thursday, Gunmen shot dead a female journalist working for an independent Iraqi news agency in Mosul, some 400 km north of Baghdad, a provincial police source said.

"Gunmen attacked Sahar al-Haidari, a female journalist, in front of her house in the al-Hadbaa neighborhood in Mosul and showered her with bullets," the source from Nineveh province told Xinhua by telephone.

The source said the victim was working under false names to avoid gunman attacks. But her name was listed as wanted along with other journalists for the self-styled Islamic State in Iraq, an al-Qaida-linked group.

Haidari, 45, is a mother of three girls and working for the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

Last week, Nezar Abdul Wahid al-Radi, another journalist for the VOI, was also killed by gunmen in the southern Missan province.

Media advocate Reporters Without Borders said that at least 182 journalists and media assistants have been killed in Iraq since the start of the US-led invasion in March 2003.

It has called for the establishment of a special police unit to investigate media killings in Iraq after a record 12 journalists were slain in May.

(Xinhua News Agency June 8, 2007)