Baghdad ? Iraqi officials Wednesday reported finding mass graves with remains of 34 people, most believed to have been Iraqi army recruits waylaid three years ago by al-Qaida gunmen as they traveled to a training base near the Syrian border.

Farmers tipped off authorities last week about the graves, located in the Euphrates River valley near Syria about 200 miles northwest of Baghdad, according to a local mayor, Farhan Fitaghan.

Fitaghan told The Associated Press that two of the remains were women.

Most of the victims were believed to have been army recruits from the southern Shiite city of Karbala who were traveling by bus in September 2005 to a training camp in an abandoned phosphate plant in Qaim when they were stopped by gunmen and taken away, the mayor said.