As they left Friday prayers in the Hurriyah district of northwest Baghdad, six Sunni men were seized by suspected members of the Shia Mahdi Army militia, douched in kerosene, and burnt alive. The attack is being viewed as a revenge killing just one day after 215 people were killed in Baghdad�s Shia Sadr district. Iraqi soldiers in a nearby army post failed to intervene in the Friday assault. 19 other Sunni deaths attributed to retaliation, including those of women and children, have occurred in the Hurriyah district.

Most of the thousands of dead bodies that have been found dumped across Baghdad and other cities in central Iraq in recent months have been of victims who were tortured and then shot to death, according to police. The suspected militia killers often have used electric drills on their captives’ bodies before killing them.

The bodies are frequently decapitated. But burning victims alive introduced a new method of brutality that was likely to be reciprocated by the other sect as the Shiites and Sunnis continue killing one another in unprecedented numbers.

Militiamen also set fire to several homes and blew up four mosques in the Hurriyah district. A total of 87 people were killed yesterday as a result of sectarian violence, despite the curfew in the capital. Residents of Hurriyah claim the Mahdi Army is kidnapping Sunnis to slaughter at the funerals of Shia victims.

The Mahdi Army is the organized militia of the Sadrist Movement. The Sadrists are a political party which support Prime Minister al-Maliki, and aim to promote a Shia form of Sharia law in Iraq. Politicians loyal to Muqtada al-Sadr, head of the Mahdi Army, threatened to boycott parliament and the cabinet if al-Maliki went ahead with a scheduled meeting with George W. Bush. Sadrist legislator Qusai Abdul-Wahab blamed US forces for Thursday’s attack in Sadr City because they failed to provide security.

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