Baghdad Shiites rout hundreds in deadly five-hour rampage through neighborhood

Sunni's present a show of strength in a 'safe' neighborhood after Shiite rampage

BAGHDAD, Dec. 9 — Bands of armed Shiite militiamen stormed through a neighborhood in north-central Baghdad on Saturday, driving hundreds of Sunni Arabs from their homes in what a Sunni colonel in the Iraqi Army described as one of the most flagrant episodes of sectarian warfare yet unleashed in the capital.

The officer, Lt. Col. Abdullah Ramadan al-Jabouri, said that more than 100 Sunni families, many with very young children, had left the Hurriya neighborhood aboard a convoy of trucks and cars under cover of the nightly curfew. Government officials tried to urge the families to return by promising army protection, but could not persuade them.

As the fighting in Hurriya broke out, the outgoing secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, arrived in Baghdad on Saturday for what American military officials said was a farewell visit to the troops. Mr. Rumsfeld, who made a farewell speech at the Pentagon on Friday, went straight to the American military headquarters at Camp Victory, on the edge of Baghdad’s international airport, and met there with United States commanders, an American military spokesman said. The spokesman said Mr. Rumsfeld was scheduled to travel to other bases outside Baghdad on Sunday before returning to Washington.

The fighting began around noon, when militiamen began rampaging through the only mixed district in Hurriya, a mostly Shiite neighborhood, and killed at least three Sunni Arabs. One family was shot as they left their home, with a 20-year-old man killed and his mother and younger brother wounded, according to an account given by the man’s father, who was at work as a security guard elsewhere at the time. The man said the three were hit by automatic rifle fire as they finished loading possessions into their car and prepared to drive to a safer area.

Colonel Jabouri said that skirmishes set off by the militia attacks continued for about five hours, until sunset. Meanwhile, a large convoy of Sunni Arabs waited in their vehicles outside the fortified Muhaimin mosque, waiting to drive to neighboring Sunni districts while local leaders negotiated with militiamen for safe passage.

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