Thousands of Iraqis Flee to Avoid Spread Of Violence

Within Baghdad, many families are moving between Sunni, Shiite and mixed neighborhoods.

Baghdad has taken in at least 220 Shiite families from Anbar province, a Sunni stronghold west of the capital, according to reports gathered by the agency. These families "represent a fairly high percentage of the total Shia community in Anbar," the agency noted.

In Fallujah, an overwhelmingly Sunni Arab city 35 miles west of Baghdad, only 37 Shiite families remain, persuaded by pleas from their Sunni neighbors to stay despite threats from foreign fighters, the agency said.

Another 15 or so miles to the west, in Habbaniyah, dozens of Sunni families have gathered to seek shelter.

Dhafir Sadoun, a 41-year-old shop owner who uprooted his household in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood and came to Habbaniyah, said he had felt no threat from the militias of Iraq's governing Shiite religious parties. But after months of kidnappings and killings of Sunni men blamed on the Shiite-dominated government security forces, it had become impossible to remain, he said.

"We did not fear the Mahdi Army," Sadoun said, referring to the militia loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, "because we've lived in Sadr City for 20 years, and everyone knows us and knows how we love the Shiites. But the Interior Ministry commandos arrest any Sunni. They don't just arrest them; they kill them."

Police in Baghdad discovered 17 corpses Tuesday, all men who were handcuffed and shot in the head, the Associated Press reported. Most had been dumped under a bridge.

Deaths reported publicly by police have represented a fraction of the total number of victims of execution-style, sectarian killings brought daily to Baghdad's morgue. Iraqi and international officials reported more than 1,000 people killed in central Iraq alone in the first week after the mosque bombing, and hundreds have died since.

Shiite-Sunni violence has intensified as Iraq drifts under the leadership of a caretaker government more than three months after national elections. In Baghdad, Sunni, Shiite and Kurdish political leaders resumed negotiations on forming a new government Tuesday, a day after the talks were interrupted by Shiites' outcry over a U.S.-Iraqi raid Sunday on what the U.S. military said was an armed faction and what the Shiites said were Shiite men at prayer in a mosque.

In Washington, top Pentagon officials said Tuesday that Sunday's raid did not mark the start of a broader crackdown on Shiite militias and said U.S. troops were unaware until after breaching the compound that it contained a place of worship.

At a Pentagon briefing, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the raid targeted a kidnapping ring. He said an Iraqi counterterrorism unit and its U.S. Special Forces advisers discovered an Iraqi hostage and numerous weapons inside the compound, as well as a small minaret and prayer room. U.S. forces "did not know that that minaret was there on the way in," Pace said.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld described the raid as a distinct, Iraqi-led operation. The Iraqi leaders engaged in negotiations over forming a new government, he said, were unlikely now to make any "big announcements on changes in policy" toward militias.

Staff writer Ann Scott Tyson in Washington, special correspondent Saad Sarhan in Najaf and other Washington Post staff members contributed to this report.