By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN
The Associated Press
Sunday, October 15, 2006; 1:37 PM

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- At least 83 people were killed during a two-day spree of sectarian revenge killings, as Iraq's government said Sunday it was indefinitely postponing a much-anticipated national reconciliation conference.

Separately, the U.S. military reported the deaths of a Marine and four soldiers.

A brief statement from the Ministry of State for National Dialogue said only that the Iraqi political powers conference planned for Saturday had been put off because of unspecified "emergency reasons out of the control of the ministry."

The failure to bring Iraq's divided politicians together appeared likely to hurt Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's attempts to strengthen political consensus, underscoring the effect worsening violence is having on efforts to stabilize the U.S.-backed government and curb the bloodshed.

An Iraqi militant group that includes al-Qaida in Iraq announced Sunday in a video that it has established an Islamic Iraqi state, comprising six provinces _ including Baghdad _ that are largely Sunni and parts of two central provinces that are predominiately Shiite.

That statement came from the Mujahedeen Shura Council _ an umbrella organization of insurgent groups in Iraq that have be trying to drive out U.S. forces and topple Iraq's fragile government.

"We bring you good news of the founding and the formation of the Islamic Iraqi State ... to protect our people," said a man identified in the video as the group's spokesman.

The man in the eight minute video, which was posted on a Web site commonly used by insurgents, wore a traditional Arab robe and had his face blocked out.

Weekend revenge killings among Shiites and Sunnis left at least 63 people dead in a city north of Baghdad. Eleven people died Sunday in a series of apparently coordinated bombings on a girls school and other targets in the northern city of Kirkuk, where Kurds and Arabs are in a tense struggle for control of the oil-rich city.

Even by Iraq's bleak standards, October has been an especially bloody month. Hundreds of Iraqi's have died in attacks and 54 U.S. military personnel have been killed in the first two weeks alone.

U.S. commanders say that based on the record of past years, they expect a further spike in bloodshed throughout the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which ends in a week. Some Islamic militants believe that dying in combat during Ramadan brings extra blessings in paradise.

The tit-for-tat sectarian killings began late Friday with the discovery of the decapitated bodies of 17 Shiites kidnapped earlier in the day near Balad, a predominantly Sunni region northwest of Baghdad and a hotbed of the insurgency battling U.S. and Iraqi forces.

Suspected Shiite militiamen then began targeting Sunnis in Balad and surrounding towns, killing at least 46 overnight, according to police and hospital officials.

Extra police flooded into the area, 50 miles north of Baghdad, to enforce a curfew and additional security measures were taken in other villages in the area, Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said.

Despite that, bullet-ridden bodies continued to be delivered to the Balad's main hospital well into Sunday morning, according to a hospital director who asked that his name not be used for fear of reprisals.

An army officer in the nearby city of Tikrit confirmed the death toll and said 63 suspects _ both Sunnis and Shiites _ were arrested.

The Iraqi Islamic Party, the country's largest Sunni political group, said 30 Sunnis had been killed and accused the Shiite-dominated police force of cooperating with the militias in snatching 70 people from Balad hospital and other locations.

"The Iraqi Islamic party condemns the violence in Balad for which we hold the occupation forces and government fully responsible," the party said in a statement, using its standard term for the U.S. military presence.

In one of the Kirkuk bombings, two girls who died when a man detonated explosives strapped to his body in front of the Kurdish al-Mallimin girls high school in downtown Kirkuk, police officials said.

The American military said the Marine was killed in combat in Anbar province, the Sunni heartland west of Baghdad on Saturday.

Three soldiers died in a roadside bombing Saturday south of Baghdad, and one soldier was killed in a roadside bombing Friday night southwest of the capital. The soldiers' names were being withheld pending notification of their families.

In Baghdad Sunday, Interior Ministry undersecretary Hala Shakir Salim survived a roadside bomb attack that killed seven others.