Shiite Militias Roam Free Despite Curfew, Occupy Sunni Mosques

But Sunnis say that ordinary worshipers have been targeted, including some who were taken from mosques and later found dead. As part of the widespread campaign of intimidation since the Samarra attack, gunmen posted banners on the walls of the Sunnis' Haj Seidan mosque in the northwest Baghdad neighborhood of Tobji, where sectarian violence has been escalating for months.

"Closed for three days in condemnation for the attack," the banners read. Word was spread among residents that anyone defying the ban would be killed.

To ignite a civil war, the bombers who attacked the shrine "decided to provoke Shiites against Sunnis," said Dawood Taha Ibrahim, 43, a grocer who lives in the neighborhood and prays at Haj Seidan.

Determined to pray together, but fearing an attack if they violate the banner's decree, fellow Sunnis sought help from the Shiite commander of a Iraq army unit based nearby, Ibrahim said. The commander agreed to remove the signs after Sunnis posted signs of their own that denounced the attack on the Samarra mosque as a "cowardly act."

"They don't want Iraq to have rest," Ibrahim said. "We just want Iraq to settle down. We would do whatever it takes."

As dusk fell Saturday, the Shiite gunmen standing guard at the mosque in Mustansiriya said they had seized it in part because the Sunni imam there had incited strife in the neighborhood by preaching against the government.

"He provoked people," said Sayid Ahmed Haidari, 40, a laborer who wore a faded brown sport coat over his black T-shirt. "Even the Sunni residents didn't like that."

Haidari said the mosque's new occupants had maintained good relations with local Sunnis. "They didn't fight back when we came, thank God," he said. "We don't have any problems with them. They can come to pray every day if they want."

Special correspondents Omar Fekeiki in Baghdad and Saad Sarhan in Najaf contributed to this report.