Amin Mohammed Amin said the grave was found west of the town of Salman after tip-offs from inhabitants of the sparsely populated region.

A five-member commission has been set up to verify the find and exhume the bodies from mass grave, located less than a kilometre (half a mile) from a former detention camp.

The corpses of between 200 and 250 prisoners held by the former regime of Saddam Hussein had been found, and were almost certainly Kurds in light of the traditional clothes they wore, Amin said.

The grave extended over more than 200 square metres (2,150 square feet) and included the bodies of men, women and children, he added.

The commission consists of a judge, a representative of the Samawa provincial council, the provincial deputy prefect and two municipal officials, he said.

Work to unearth the bodies and rebury them according to Islamic rites has already begun, Amin said.

More than 180,000 Iraqi Kurds were killed during the Anfal military campaign in northern Iraq in 1987-88, when thousands of villages were destroyed and hundreds of thousands of people displaced.

Six former officials of Saddam's regime are currently on trial in Baghdad for their roles in those operations, including the late dictator's cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majid -- also known as "Chemical Ali" -- who has been charged with genocide.

Majid earned his nickname for allegedly ordering the use of chemical weapons during the Anfal campaign.