Sectarian killings, reprisals shake Baghdad; dozens die

Witnesses said militiamen shot people whose IDs showed Sunni names.
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Masked Shiite gunmen roamed through west Baghdad's Jihad neighborhood Sunday, dragging Sunnis from their cars, picking them out on the street and killing them in a rampage that police said killed 41 people in a dramatic escalation of sectarian violence.
Hours later, two car bombs exploded near a Shiite mosque in the city's north, killing 17 people and wounding 38 in what appeared to be a reprisal attack, police said.
Black-clad Shiite militiamen manned checkpoints on roads into most major Shiite neighborhoods to guard against revenge attacks, as scattered clashes occurred across the Iraqi capital.
Sunni leaders expressed outrage over the killings, and President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, appealed for calm, warning that the nation stood "in front of a dangerous precipice."
Presidential security adviser Wafiq al-Samaraie told Al-Jazeera television that "we are at the gates of civil war" unless "exceptional measures" are taken.
Disputed estimates
A senior government official, Haidar Majid, contested the police figures, saying late Sunday that only nine people died in Jihad. Police Lt. Mohammed Khayoun insisted the figure of 41 was correct -- with 24 bodies taken to Yarmouk hospital and 17 to the city morgue. There was no way to reconcile the discrepancy.
Regardless, the brazen attack was likely to further enflame Shiite-Sunni tensions and undermine public confidence in Iraq's new unity government. It also raises new questions about the effectiveness of the Iraqi police and army to curb sectarian violence in the capital.
The trouble started about 10 a.m. when several carloads of gunmen drove into the Jihad area along the main road to Baghdad International Airport, police and witnesses said. The gunmen stopped cars, checked passengers' identification cards and shot dead those with Sunni names.
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