Shi’ite militia kill dozens of detainees in reprisal attack

Signs emerged of a reprisal sectarian slaughter of Sunnis in Iraq, as police said pro-government Shi’ite militiamen killed nearly four dozen detainees after insurgents tried to storm a jail and free them north-east of Baghdad.

The Iraqi military insisted the Sunni inmates were killed when the attackers shelled the facility outside the city of Baqouba. Neither account could be independently confirmed, but a local morgue official said many of the detainees had bullet wounds to the head and chest.

The allegation of Shi’ite killings of Sunnis was the first hint of the beginnings of a return to sectarian warfare that nearly tore the country apart in 2006 and 2007. Sunni militants also have been accused of atrocities — an apparent attempt to provoke Shi’ite militias into revenge attacks that would strengthen the hand of an al-Qaeda splinter group within Iraq’s Sunni community.