Security and police officials said off-duty Shiite policemen enraged by two massive bombings in the northern town of Tal Afar went on a revenge killing spree there early Wednesday, murdering an unspecified number of Sunni residents.
According to the AP, they said the policemen started roaming the town's Sunni neighborhoods early in the morning, shooting at Sunni residents and homes. Dozens of Sunnis died or were wounded, they said. The shooting continued for more than two hours, the officials said.
Army troops later moved into the Sunni areas to stop the violence, said the officials.
Police, military and health officials said as many as 75 men were killed in the attack on the Sunni district of al-Wahda. "I wish you can come and see all the bodies. They are lying in the grounds. We don't have enough space in the hospital. All of the victims were shot in the head," a doctor at the main hospital told Reuters.
In Tuesday's truck bombings in Tal Afar, one suicide bomber lured victims to buy wheat loaded on his truck in a Shi'ite neighbourhood. A second truck bomb exploded in a used car lot. The attacks killed at least 55 people and wounded 185.
In 2006, U.S. President George W. Bush held up Tal Afar as an example of progress being made in Iraq after U.S.-led forces freed it from al Qaeda in an offensive the previous year.
