Iraqi Shi'ite militiamen machine gunned minority Sunni Muslims in a village mosque on Friday, killing dozens just as Baghdad was trying to build a cross-community government to fight Sunni militants whose rise has alarmed Western powers.
A morgue official in Diyala province north of Baghdad said 68 people had been killed in the sectarian attack staged on the Muslim day of prayer. Ambulances took the bodies 60 km (40
miles) to the provincial capital of Baquba, where Iranian-trained Shi'ite militias are powerful and act with impunity.
Attacks on mosques are acutely sensitive and have in the past unleashed a deadly series of revenge killings and counter attacks in Iraq, where violence has returned to the levels of
2006-2007, the peak of a sectarian civil war.
Two influential Sunni politicians, Deputy Prime Minister Saleh al-Mutlaq and Parliament Speaker Salim al-Jibouri, quickly suspended participation in talks with the main Shi'ite
political alliance to form a new government.
Lawmaker Nahida al-Dayani, who is from Diyala, said about 150 worshippers were at Imam Wais mosque when the militiamen arrived following a roadside bombing which had targeted a security vehicle. "It is a new massacre," said Dayani, a Sunni originally from the village where the attack happened.
"Sectarian militias entered and opened fire at worshippers. Most mosques have no security," she told Reuters. "Some of the victims were from one family. Some women who rushed to see the fate of their relatives at the mosque were killed."
The bloodbath marks a setback for Prime Minister-designate Haider al-Abadi, from the majority Shi'ite community, who is seeking support from Sunnis and ethnic Kurds to take on the Islamic State insurgency threatening to tear Iraq apart.
An army major who declined to be identified said the gunmen arrived in two pickup trucks after two bombs had gone off at the house of a Shi'ite militia leader, killing three of his men.
A Sunni tribal leader, Salman al-Jibouri, said his community was prepared to respond in kind. "Sunni tribes have been alerted to avenge the killings," he said.
Syrian death till doubles
At least 191,369 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict up to April, more than double the figure documented a year ago and probably still an under-estimate, the United
Nations human rights office said on Friday.
Obama had intended to punish Assad for using chemical weapons in the civil war - charges Damascus denied - but the air strikes were cancelled after a Russian-brokered deal under which Syria surrendered its chemical arsenal.
Sources familiar with Syrian government thinking say Assad is wagering that Islamic State's push to reshape the Middle East will eventually force a hostile West to deal with him as the
only way to tackle the threat.
Western governments which back the uprising have dismissed the idea of rapprochement. But if the United States were to attack Islamic State in Syria, it would find itself - however
reluctantly - fighting a common enemy with Assad.
His Dutch counterpart Frans Timmermans said the fight against Islamic State could be successful only if it was confronted in Syria as well as Iraq.
Iraq also faces hard decisions. The government has promised to release from prison a former defence minister of ousted president Saddam Hussein, a senior Sunni official said.
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