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Shiite police go on revenge spree, killing at least 45

Off-duty Shiite policemen enraged by massive bombings in the northern town of Tal Afar went on a revenge spree against Sunni residents there yesterday, killing at least 45 men execution-style, police and hospital officials said.

The policemen began roaming the town's Sunni neighborhoods on foot early in the morning, shooting at Sunni residents and homes.

"We received 45 bodies of handcuffed and blindfolded men from al-Wahada neighborhood overnight. They were killed yesterday just after the bomb," a doctor at Tal Afar hospital said on condition of anonymity.

He said the dead men ranged in age from 15 to 60. Four other men were wounded.

Police said dozens of Sunnis were killed or wounded, but they had no precise figures. The shooting continued for more than two hours, the officials said.

Army troops later moved into the Sunni areas to stop the violence and a curfew was slapped on the entire town, according to Wathiq al-Hamdani, the provincial police chief and his head of operations, Brigadier Abdul-Karim al-Jibouri.

Tal Afar, 418km northwest of Baghdad, is in Ninevah Province.

"The situation is under control now," said al-Hamdani. "The local Tal Afar police have been confined to their bases and policemen from Mosul are moving there to replace them."

Al-Jibouri said he was heading to Tal Afar to take charge of the situation.

Two truck bombs hit markets in Tal Afar on Tuesday, killing at least 63 and wounding 150.
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