Dozens killed in Baghdad violence

Masked Shiite gunmen went on a rampage in western Baghdad today, pulling Sunni Arabs from cars and off the street and killing at least 41 people, police said.

The attack in the Jihad neighbourhood was in apparent retaliation for the Saturday night car bombing of a Shiite mosque that killed two and wounded nine. Sunni leaders expressed outrage over the today’s attacks, referring to them as a “massacre”.

Armed men belonging to the Mahdi army, the Shiite militia loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, sealed off roads leading to the neighbouring area of Shula, fearing reprisals, police said, although al-Sadr aides denied their militiamen were behind the attacks.

Clashes also were reported in the area and in eastern Baghdad.

Police and witnesses said gunmen drove into the Jihad area in four cars and began stopping vehicles. Those with identification cards indicating Sunni names were killed, they said.

An Interior Ministry official said Shiite militiamen wearing masks and black uniforms also roamed the neighbourhood, abducting Sunnis off the street.

Their bodies were later dumped on streets throughout the neighbourhood, police said.

Wissam Mohammad Hussein al-Ani, a 27-year-old Sunni calligrapher, said three gunmen stopped him as he was walking toward the bus and asked him to show them his identification. They let him go after he produced a fake ID with a Shiite name but seized two young men standing nearby.

The Shiite owner of a supermarket in the area said he saw heavily armed men pull four people out of a car, blindfold them and forced them to stand to the side while they grabbed five others out of a minivan.

“After 10 minutes, the gunmen took the nine people to a place a few yards away from the market and opened fire on them,” Saad Jawad Kadhim al-Azzawi said. “When I heard the gunfire, I closed my supermarket and went home.”

Police Lieutenant Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said 41 bodies had been collected and taken to hospitals. He also said US and Iraqi forces had sealed off the area. Witnesses said the American forces were using loudspeakers to announce a two-day curfew.

Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie, a Sunni, also called the attack “a real and ugly massacre”, and blamed Iraqi security forces, widely believed to have been infiltrated by Shiite militias, for failing to maintain order.

“There are officers who instead of being in charge should be questioned and referred to judicial authorities,” al-Zubaie told Al-Jazeera TV. “Jihad is witnessing a catastrophic crime.”

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s office distanced itself from al-Zubaie’s comments, issuing a statement saying they ”do not represent the government’s point of view”.

The Shiite-led government has vowed to crack down on Shiite militias and Iraqi troops backed by US jets raided the stronghold of Sadr City on Friday, killing and wounding dozens of people.

An Interior Ministry aide said the situation was brought under control after several hours.

Major General Ali Jasim said that by mid-afternoon, the neighbourhood was “under the full control” of Interior Ministry commandos.

Alaa Maki, a member of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament, accused Shiite extremists of trying to wipe out the minority, which was dominant under Saddam Hussein but lost power to majority Shiites after his ouster.

“We demand the presidency, the prime minister and the parliament stand against this agenda,” he said. “The situation is very serious. If it deteriorates, all of us will be losers.”

Some Sunni leaders blamed the Madhdi army, the black-uniformed militia loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

Sheikh Abdul Samad al-Hadithi, imam of the Fakhri Shanshal Sunni mosque that also was hit by a car bomb on Friday, with two people killed, said the militiamen were looking for revenge for the bombing against the Shiite mosque on Saturday.

He said they first set up checkpoints and killed nine employees of the Sunni Endowment, the state agency responsible for Sunni mosques and shrines, then went on a rampage, killing more than 50 people according to their IDs.

“They wanted to retaliate against people of the other sect,” al-Hadithi said, accusing Interior Ministry forces at the site of standing by while the attacks occurred.

Al-Sadr aide Sheik Abdul-Hadi al-Darraji denied any links, saying the attackers were wearing the black uniforms to provoke sectarian tension.

Clashes also broke out between gunmen and Iraqi police in the eastern Fadhal neighbourhood, but the situation was brought under control after several hours, Abdul-Razzaq said.

In other violence, gunmen killed an Iraqi army intelligence officer in the Shiite holy city of Karbala as security forces nationwide faced a series of deadly shootings.

A policeman was killed in a drive-by shooting as he was driving his car in the northern city of Kirkuk.

Gunmen also opened fire on a police foot patrol in eastern Baghdad, killing one policeman.