BAGHDAD – Shiite militants and police enraged by deadly truck bombings went on a shooting rampage against Sunnis in a northwestern Iraqi city Wednesday, killing as many as 70 men execution-style and prompting fears that sectarian violence was spreading outside the capital.
The killings occurred in the mixed Shiite-Sunni city Tal Afar, which had been an insurgent stronghold until an offensive by U.S. and Iraqi troops in September 2005, when militants fled into the countryside without a fight. Last March, President Bush cited the operation as an example that gave him “confidence in our strategy.”
The revenge killings among Shiites in the religiously mixed city 260 miles northwest of Baghdad were triggered by truck bombings in Tal Afar on Tuesday that killed 80 people and wounded 185.
The gunmen roamed Sunni neighborhoods in Tal Afar through the night, shooting at residents and homes, according to police and a local Sunni politician. Witnesses said relatives of the Shiite victims in the truck bombings broke into Sunni homes and killed the men inside or dragged them out and shot them in the streets.
Gen. Khourshid al-Douski, the Iraqi army commander in charge of the area, said 70 were shot in the back of the head and 40 people were kidnapped. A senior hospital official in Tal Afar said 45 men were killed.
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.
Army troops moved into Sunni areas of the city Wednesday to stop the violence, confining police to their bases and enacting a curfew. Calm was restored by mid-afternoon, said Wathiq al-Hamdani, the provincial police chief, and his head of operations, Brig. Abdul-Karim al-Jibouri.
The hard-line Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars said the revenge killings were evidence “of the clear plot and coordination between the militias and the government forces of interior and defense.”
At least 44 people were killed or found dead elsewhere in Iraq, including four people in two car bombings in Baghdad.
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