A Shiite shopkeeper said he saw heavily armed men pull four people out of a
car, blindfold them and force them to stand to the side while they grabbed five
others out of a minivan.
"After ten minutes, the gunmen took the nine people to a place a few meters
(yards) away from the market and opened fire on them," Saad Jawad al-Azzawi
said.
Wissam Mohammad al-Ani, a Sunni, said three gunmen stopped him as he was
talking toward a bus stop and demanded his identification. They let him go after
he produced a fake ID with a Shiite name, but they seized two young men standing
nearby.
Police and Shiite leaders speculated the rampage was carried out in
retaliation for a Saturday night car bombing at a Shiite mosque that killed two
people and wounded nine.
Clashes also broke out between gunmen and Iraqi police in at least three
neighborhoods across the capital, police and residents said. Three Shiite
militiamen were killed in fighting with security forces in one of them, police
said.
The spokesman for a Sunni clerical association, Mohammed Beshar al-Faydhi,
blamed the Jihad attack on the Mahdi Army militia, led by radical Shiite cleric
Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Faydhi told Al-Jazeera television that he had documents to
prove his allegation.
Al-Sadr denied responsibility and called on both Shiites and Sunnis to "join
hands for the sake of Iraq's independence and stability." He assured Vice
President Tariq al-Hashimi, leader of the largest Sunni Arab party, that he
would punish any of his militiamen if they were involved.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has promised to disband Shiite
militias and other armed groups, which are blamed for much of the sectarian
violence. On Friday, Iraqi troops backed by U.S. jets raided a Shiite militia
stronghold in Baghdad's Sadr City neighborhood, killing and wounding dozens of
people.
But militias have flourished in large part because of the inability of the
police, the Iraqi army and coalition forces to guarantee security. Many in the
Shiite majority believe the militias are their only protection against Sunni
extremists such as al-Qaida in Iraq, responsible for many car bombings and
suicide attacks against Shiite civilians.
The violence is likely to complicate U.S. and Iraqi efforts to encourage
disaffected Sunnis to abandon the Sunni-dominated insurgency and join mainstream
politics so U.S. troops can begin to go home.
Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zubaie, a Sunni, described the Jihad attack as
"a real and ugly massacre," and blamed Iraqi security forces, which are widely
believed to have been infiltrated by Shiite militias.
"There are officers who instead of being in charge should be questioned and
referred to judicial authorities," al-Zubaie told Al-Jazeera TV. "Jihad is
witnessing a catastrophic crime."
The prime minister's office quickly distanced itself from al-Zubaie's
comments, saying in a statement that they "do not represent the government's
point of view."
Sunni politician Alaa Maki also blamed Shiite extremists, claiming they were
out to wipe out the Sunni Arab minority.
"We demand the presidency, the prime minister and the parliament stand
against this agenda," Maki said. "The situation is very serious. If it
deteriorates, all of us will be losers."
Also Sunday, an American soldier died in a "non-combat related incident," the
U.S. command said without giving further details.
In the western city of Ramadi, a car bomb exploded next to a U.S. convoy,
wounding four American soldiers, the military said. The attack occurred as the
convoy headed to the government center in the city, an insurgent hotbed 70 miles
west of Baghdad.
