The remains were found in Milk Shai, 120 kilometers (70 miles) north of Baghdad, an area that does not fall within the northern Kurdistan region.

"They are Kurds killed by the men of Saddam Hussein in 1991," at the time of a major Shiite uprising in the south after the Gulf war, said the official from the human rights department of the Kurdish province of Sulaimaniyah.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said he had asked for help from US officials to extract the remains and said the site was currently under police protection.

Many mass graves where Kurds were buried have been discovered in the north of Iraq and authorities hope to use the evidence in court cases against Saddam.

Saddam and six of his former regime officials are to face charges of genocide for killing nearly 100,000 Kurds at the time of the Anfal operation in the early 1980s.