The list of 415 names, found in a building of the intelligence services of the deposed Baathist regime abandoned when the Americans seized Karbala, has been displayed in several places in the Shiite holy city.

For the people of Karbala, who have yet to shake off the memory of the brutal repression of their revolt, the 415 men executed by the Saddam regime are "still alive, and with God," according to a verse from the Koran, the Muslim holy book, written on top of the list.

It was the first word about the missing in 12 years. But there was nothing about thousands more -- some 30,000 dead according to several historians.

As the 1991 Gulf War drew to an end, southern Iraq, a predominantly Shiite region that suffered decades of discrimination, rose up against the regime with the encouragement of Tehran and Washington.

But then President George Bush changed his mind, allowing Saddam's artillery and helicopters to bring the "intifada" to a bloody end.

Karbala was one of the last to bow after Saddam's Republican Guard sent tanks to its two holy shrines.

Kamir watched from a distance as his three brothers were being arrested while intelligence agents filled the town. He himself escaped, but only just, spending 10 years between Baghdad, Syria and Lebanon.

"I did not expect the Americans to help us. So I chose exile," said the 38-year-old.

Others are still angry. "The Americans left us in the hands of Saddam," said Mohammad Hussein Ali, a 35-year-old merchant who lost two brothers as well as his home, destroyed by government forces along with the rest of the city center before they replaced the old market with a more controllable esplanade.

"I challenge you to find one Muslim who likes the Americans. Let them give us water, electricity, security, and go away," said Ahmad Abbas Marai, a 65-year-old farmer who was looking for a missing brother, a nephew and neighbors, but without much hope.

"There are witnesses who saw my brother hanged and thrown in the river. All families here have suffered," he said.

When US forces seized Karbala, 80 kilometers (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad, on April 6, Marai rushed to the intelligence service building.

"There was an underground prison. We dug with excavators, but we did not find an entrance," he said.

And the story recurs: Four brothers of Mohammad Ali Hasan, aged 14 to 27, were rounded up in the street while a fifth sought refuge in Denmark. Jinan Marhun Haadi's husband, a father of three, was detained for throwing away his military uniform to join the intifada.

Haji Razzak Hassun Sabar lost four sons and 23 members of his clan. His sons, who used to run a restaurant, "hated Saddam, like all Shiite tribes do. One day, the police came after them," he recalled.

Haji Bandar Saajid Samar, who lost two sons, added: "We Shiites rebelled against injustice, and for love of Hussein," the Prophet Mohammad's grandson who was killed in Karbala in 680 and is considered a martyr by Shiites.

"I too was arrested and tortured with electricity," he said, taking off a sock to show a big scar on his ankle.

In traumatized Karbala, fear and distrust have not gone. A copy of the list of 415 posted near a school has been torn off, and the neighborhood is abuzz with anguished rumors about the return of officials from the former ruling Baath Party.

SPACE.WIRE