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Sunni Arabs Targeted in Revenge Killings
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Khalaf asserted that the Interior Ministry commandos had set up checkpoints and were screening travelers, seeking out Sunnis. Both Shiite and Sunni fighters in Iraq's growing sectarian violence often are accused of using traffic checks to find and kill members of the opposite sect.
A police major in Duluiyah, Hussein Alwan, said by telephone that residents "are in a state of alert and top readiness. They are carrying arms, while mosques are calling on the people through loudspeakers to take up arms in defense of the town. They expect an imminent attack" by Interior Ministry commandos.
Tensions in the area have been high for weeks, "but yesterday's killing of the 17 farmworkers was the spark that will set off total war" there, Alwan said.
The fighting in the Tigris River towns served as a microcosm of the Shiite-Sunni killing that has increased dramatically this year and is claiming scores of lives in the capital and around Iraq every day, according to monthly counts from Iraqi authorities.
Baghdad police said they had found 23 bodies between midnight Friday and noon Saturday. All of the victims were shot and most of them bore signs of torture.
Three separate attacks involving bombs or mortars killed three civilians and a policeman in Baghdad, police said.
In the northern oil city of Kirkuk, gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint, triggering a clash that killed two gunmen, Lt. Col. Sadrudeen Aziz said.
The U.S. military reported that a bomb killed an American soldier southwest of Baghdad on Friday and, on Saturday, a U.S. airman was killed in action in Baghdad and a Marine died "due to enemy action" in the western province of Anbar. October is on track to be one of the deadliest months of the war for U.S. forces, with more than 40 killed so far.
Aldin reported from outside Balad. Other Washington Post staff in Iraq contributed to this report.
