http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/15/AR2006101500206.htmlThe death toll in two days of bloody fighting between two Shiite and Sunni towns in the north rose to at least 80 on Sunday, a hospital official said, with more bodies allegedly lying in the streets and unable to be retrieved.
In all, at least 110 people had died since Saturday in the surge of violence in and around the northern town of Balad, in the northern oil center of Kirkuk, and in Baghdad and other cities, authorities said.
The worst bloodshed took place about 50 miles north of Baghdad, around the predominantly Sunni town of Duluiyah and the larger, predominantly Shiite town of Balad. The two communities are separated by the Tigris River.
The bloodletting there was touched off Friday by the kidnapping and beheading of 17 Shiite laborers working in date-palm groves in Duluiyah. Shiite leaders in the neighboring town said Saturday they asked militias of powerful Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr to come from Baghdad to strike back and take revenge. Shiite militias poured into the area, and Balad hospital workers said the bodies of 27 Sunnis had been brought to the hospital by Saturday night, all of them shot to death and bearing holes from electric drills and other signs of torture.
By Sunday afternoon, a total of 80 bodies were stacked up in the hospital morgue, Dr. Kamal al-Haidari said by telephone. Most had been shot in the head, he said.
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