Dozens of Sunnis executed in northern Iraqi city

BAGHDAD — Marauding mobs that included men in police uniforms went on a killing spree in the northern Iraqi city of Tal Afar on Wednesday to avenge a truck bombing, murdering at least 60 Sunni Muslims in a stark reminder that Iraq's sectarian tensions can explode at any provocation.

A year ago, President Bush hailed the predominantly Shiite Muslim city as a model of peace and a sign that the U.S. military strategy in Iraq was working. But order in the city broke down within hours after two truck bombs tore through a busy marketplace Tuesday and left at least 80 people dead.

The carnage in Tal Afar, about 260 miles northwest of Baghdad, was a piece in an alarming and increasingly complex bloodletting nationwide: Sunnis fighting Sunnis west of Baghdad, Shiites battling Shiites in the deep south and Shiites against Sunnis in three towns on the southern fringes of the capital.

Tal Afar, in Iraq's northwestern wheat belt, and the three towns in the fertile land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers south of Baghdad had no history of major Sunni-Shiite strife until the U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown in the capital began six weeks ago.

The recent outbreaks of sectarian bloodshed marked what could be a significant acceleration of Iraq's slide toward a full-fledged civil war.

"Security, as you can see, is still deteriorating in the country and sectarianism is unfortunately prevailing," former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, a Shiite, told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

U.S. and Iraqi officials have said that ridding Baghdad of its relentless sectarian violence would calm the rest of the country, giving Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki breathing room to impose his authority in hot spots outside the capital.

But the U.S.-Iraqi security sweep through Baghdad, which has had modest success since its launch Feb. 14, appears to have forced Sunni insurgents, al-Qaida in Iraq fighters and Shiite militiamen to take their fight to regions where there are fewer U.S. and Iraqi troops.

"The security plan in Baghdad has fragmented the terrorist network," said Reda Jawad Taqi, a lawmaker and a senior leader of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the country's largest Shiite political party. "It's like a beehive: When disturbed, the bees fly everywhere."

The violence in Tal Afar, a largely ethnic Turkomen city, was the most ominous sign that sectarian violence may be taking root outside Baghdad.

Tal Afar was a stronghold for insurgents until a U.S.-Iraqi offensive drove them off without a fight in September 2005, leading Bush last March to cite the operation as an example that gave him "confidence in our strategy." But attacks inside the city have continued.

Enraged by Tuesday's truck bombings, Shiite extremists and off-duty policemen went on a killing spree that lasted into Wednesday and left as many as 60 Sunnis dead, many executed with a gunshot to the back of the head.

Shiite extremists and police roamed Sunni neighborhoods through the night, shooting at residents and homes, according to police and a local Sunni politician. Witnesses said relatives of the truck-bombing victims broke into Sunni homes and killed the men inside or dragged them out and shot them in the streets.

Outraged Sunni groups blamed Shiite-led security forces. Al-Maliki's office ordered an investigation, and the U.S. command offered to provide assistance.

Ali al-Talafari, a Sunni member of the local Turkomen Front Party, said the Iraqi army had arrested 18 policemen accused in the shooting rampage after they were identified by Sunni families. Shiite militiamen also took part, he said.

Tal Afar isn't alone.

Over the past week, supporters of a Shiite militia, the Mahdi Army, clashed with gunmen from Fadhila, a Shiite party, in the southern city of Basra, raising the prospect of a wider Shiite-on-Shiite conflict in a relatively quiet region of Iraq.

In the three mixed towns south of Baghdad — Iskandriyah, Haswa and Mahaweel — Shiite and Sunni mosques have been hit in tit-for-tat attacks. At least 13 people were killed, including 11 who perished in a suicide truck bombing at a Shiite mosque Saturday.

The government had hoped Sunni tribal militias it now backs would triumph over al-Qaida and its network of local Sunni supporters in areas west and north of Baghdad where they are in the majority.

But the strategy has been weakened by a series of al-Qaida suicide bombings in recent weeks and the assassination of senior tribal figures who were believed at odds with the terror group or ready to enter talks with the United States.

In the latest such reprisal, a military leader from the 1920 Revolution Brigades, a major Sunni insurgent group thought to have held secret talks with the Americans, was killed Tuesday in an area west of Baghdad. Al-Qaida was blamed.

Harith Dhaher al-Dhari also was the son of a key tribal chief whose followers are thought to be divided between backing al-Qaida and the tribal militias fighting the terrorist group.