The bodies of at least 80 people apparently killed in sectarian attacks have been found in Baghdad since early Monday, after more than 50 people died in multiple car bombs in a Shi'ite militia stronghold. Discovered as Iraqi leaders failed to break a deadlock on forming a unity government that might avert a bloodbath, the dead included 29 found by a group of children playing soccer, and 15 strangled men dumped in the back of a pickup truck.

The unusually high number of bodies for a short period - many of them bearing signs of torture - followed Sunday's car bombs that struck Baghdad's Sadr City, a stronghold of the radical Shi'ite cleric and militia leader, Moqtada al-Sadr. Sadr himself called publicly for restraint on Monday. But in Sadr City, the bodies of men labelled "traitors" were hung from telegraph poles and officials say privately that Shi'ite militia commanders are no longer all heeding clerical appeals for calm.

Days of reprisals that killed hundreds after the February 22 bombing of a Shi'ite shrine, prompted warning from officials, including the US envoy, that another large-scale attack could set off all-out sectarian conflict. Many Sunnis had accused Sadr's Mehdi Army militia of being behind most of the reprisals against Sunni homes and mosques sparked by the bomb of Samarra's Golden Mosque. Sadr, a rising kingmaker in the ruling Shi'ite Alliance, urged his followers on Monday not to retaliate for the car bombs and has denied running death squads.