Iraqi army sent to Tal Afar after police killing spree; Toll now at 70

Bodies of shooting victims are placed in a truck after they were claimed by relatives from a hospital morgue in Mosul

BAGHDAD — The Iraqi army scrambled Wednesday to stop sectarian violence in the northern city of Tall Afar, where Shiite Muslim policemen, aided by an angry mob, killed at least 70 Sunnis in revenge for a pair of truck bombings a day earlier.

The police went on the rampage in Tall Afar's Sunni neighborhood of Wihda after two truck bombs exploded Tuesday, killing 85 people, most of them Shiite Turkmens. The group Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for the bombings, which left 183 wounded...

It was the deadliest episode of sectarian revenge killings in Iraq since October, when a rampage over several days in Balad left more than 100 Shiite and Sunni Arabs dead.

Read the rest at the LA Times

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