Shi'ites storm Sunni area of Baghdad; 2 are killed

BAGHDAD -- Gangs of roving Shi'ite Muslim gunmen stormed a west Baghdad neighborhood yesterday, burning houses and killing at least two people in broad daylight, authorities said.

By evening, more than 100 Sunni Arab families had fled their homes, carrying their belongings and furniture in trucks in one of the worst-known incidents of sectarian attacks to grip the capital in recent weeks.

According to a senior Iraqi army commander and residents, Mahdi Army militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr launched the attack on a section of the mixed neighborhood of Hurriyah, which means freedom. The rampaging began at 2:30 p.m. and lasted an hour before Iraqi army soldiers entered the neighborhood.

"They attacked the people, shooting at them," a senior Iraqi commander who was involved in the operation said of the militiamen. "They were threatening people. They were telling them to leave or else we will burn your house down and kill you."

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld made an unannounced trip to Iraq yesterday, a day after his emotional farewell at the Pentagon.

"He's there to express his appreciation to the troops and to thank both the troops and their families for the sacrifices they are making," said Lieutenant Colonel Todd Vician of the Air Force, a Defense Department spokesman.

It was Rumsfeld's 15th trip to Iraq since the war began; he was last there in July. His last full day at the Pentagon is Dec. 17.

In a separate development, a nephew of Saddam Hussein serving a life sentence in a Northern Iraqi prison escaped yesterday, in what authorities believe might have been an inside job.

Ayman Sabawi, the son of Saddam Hussein's half-brother, was detained last year during a raid in Tikrit, Hussein's hometown. He later was convicted of possessing illegal weapons and manufacturing explosives for Sunnis.

Police said Sabawi managed yesterday to leave Badoosh Prison, about 45 miles west of the northern city of Mosul, got into a waiting car, and fled. Authorities are investigating whether night-shift prison guards might have helped him escape, police said.

Sabawi was arrested in May 2005 by US and Iraqi forces near Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, north of Baghdad. He was convicted of illegally crossing the border from Syria and was sentenced to 15 years in prison late last year by an Iraqi court. He also was sentenced to life in prison for possession of illegal weapons and manufacture of bombs.

Baghdad has been on edge since car bombs, mortars shells, and missiles killed more than 200 on Nov. 23 in the Shi'ite slum of Sadr City, the stronghold of Sadr.

Since then, several small-scale revenge attacks have erupted in various mixed neighborhoods. The attack on Hurriyah marked one of the more serious in this deadly cycle of sectarian killings.

The attack was apparently in retaliation for an attack on Shi'ite residents by Sunni gunmen, said the Iraqi commander, who spoke on condition that his name not be used because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Yesterday's attacks unfolded in Hurriyah Three, a section of the neighborhood filled mostly with Sunni families from the Mishahda group, witnesses and authorities said. Witnesses gave different accounts of what had occurred.

Hameed al-Dahabi, a Shi'ite construction worker, said that about a month ago the Mahdi Army threatened Sunnis to leave their homes in Hurriyah Three. Some of the Sunni families complied. In the past two or three days, other Sunnis reclaimed the homes, he said.

They attacked the Mahdi Army members and occasionally shot randomly into the street, he said. The Mahdi Army fought back, using AK-47 assault rifles and grenades, he said.

Dahabi, his wife, and their four children stayed in their home as the fighting intensified. Yesterday morning, three more families fled.

He decided to stay because he has lived there since 1959.

Dahabi said seven or eight Sunnis began shooting from one house yesterday morning. Mahdi Army fighters tried to climb to the roofs of neighboring houses to shoot back, but the occupants would not let them in, he said.

Instead, the militiamen surrounded the house and shot into it. This continued until about 3 p.m., when the Sunnis fled the house. The Mahdi Army fighters then burned down the house.

Material from the Associated Press was included in this report.