Killing of 14 Iraqi Sunnis fuels sectarian fears

Fourteen Iraqis shot dead and left at a Baghdad garbage dump were Sunni Arabs, relatives say, raising the spectre of deeper sectarian strife in Iraq where mass killings of Shi'ites have already inflamed anger.

Relatives of the victims, witnesses and a police official said the dead were farmers from the town of Madaen just south of Baghdad, where tit-for-tat kidnappings and killings between Shi'ites and Sunnis have sparked tension across Iraq.

A resident who saw a man digging a grave in an industrial area of Baghdad alerted police to the corpses on early Friday. Some were blindfolded and shot through the head execution-style.

Officials say it is unclear who killed the Iraqis, but they say insurgents are trying to spark civil war. Sunni Arab leaders denounced the killings.

While there have been repeated mass killings in Iraq of Shi'ites and Kurds - their bodies often dumped in public to intimidate others - there have been few reports of massacres of Sunni Arabs.

The influential Muslim Clerics Association, which has a wide following among Sunnis, published the names of the 14 victims, all from one of Iraq's most powerful tribes. Some were brothers.

Elections have dramatically changed Iraq's political landscape. Sunni Arabs who dominated under Saddam Hussein have been sidelined and Shi'ites and Kurds oppressed by the toppled leader's regime are the new powers in Iraq.

Iraq's leaders have bickered for three months since the January 30 polls, struggling to balance the interests of Shi'ites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds in the new government and to defuse sectarian tensions.