Signs of reprisal killings emerge in Iraq

Associated Press

BAGHDAD

Nearly four dozen Sunni detainees were gunned down at a jail north of Baghdad, a car bomb struck a Shiite neighborhood of the capital and four young Sunnis were found slain, as ominous signs emerged Tuesday that open warfare between the two main Muslim sects has returned to Iraq.

The killings, after the capture by Sunni insurgents of a large swath of the country stretching to Syria, were the first hints of the beginnings of a return to sectarian bloodletting that nearly tore the country apart in 2006 and 2007.

During the United States’ eight-year presence in Iraq, American forces acted as a buffer between the two Islamic sects, albeit with limited success. The U.S. military is now being pulled back in — with a far more limited mission and far fewer troops, as President Barack Obama nears a decision on an array of options for combating the Islamic militants.

In the latest sect-on-sect violence, at least 44 Sunni detainees were slaughtered by gunshots to the head and chest by pro-government Shiite militiamen after Sunni insurgents tried to storm the jail near Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, police said.

The Iraqi military gave a different account and put the death toll at 52, insisting the Sunni inmates were killed by mortar shells in the attack late Monday on the facility.

Obama has said he would not commit the U.S. to military action in Iraq unless the government in Baghdad moves to “set aside sectarian differences, to promote stability, and account for the legitimate interests of all of Iraq’s communities.”