Reprisal Attacks Kill Dozens In Iraq

As many as 50 people were killed in what appeared to be reprisal attacks in Tal Afar after a double suicide-vehicle bombing there on Tuesday killed 85 people and wounded 150, Iraqi officials and a witness said today.

Armed attacks broke out against Sunnis in the Sunni neighborhood of Al Wahda, with Shiite Iraqi security forces suspected of taking part, they said.

Some of the families of the victims were enraged, and with cooperation of some policemen they attacked the Sunni areas, said a resident in the city, Muhie Muhammad Ebrahim. I can say that a public slaughtering took place, but there was no reaction from the authorities.

Twelve police officers suspected of taking part in the reprisal killings were arrested, said an official in the Iraqi army, who declined to be identified. And the Iraqi prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, ordered a committee be formed to investigate allegations the gunmen included some Iraqi police.

In the most destructive of the two suicide attacks in Tal Afar on Tuesday, the bomber was driving a truck partially filled with sacks of flour for bread that concealed his explosives. He started handing out the sacks to people, saying it was free aid. But as a crowd gathered around his vehicle, he detonated the bomb. Dr. Salah Qadou, the head of the hospital there, said today the death toll from the two attacks had risen to 85.

Today, ambulances circulated through the northern city to pick up bodies. The hospital was running low on medical supplies and blood. The police said that dozens of people demonstrated in front of the mayors office, calling for him and the police commander to resign.

The Iraqi army imposed a curfew and dispatched army vehicles to patrol the streets of the city, which was once cited by President Bush as an example of American military success in Iraq.

The American military said in a statement today that its forces were prepared to assist the Iraqis in enforcing the law in Tal Afar.

Tal Afar is a dusty and agrarian northern city where the American military established a large presence in 2005 by putting its forces closely together with Iraqi police and security forces in joint operations. Before then, in 2004, American forces had pushed into the area with a large offensive, then later withdrawn. The city, once seen as an entry point for foreign fighters, saw a dramatic drop in violence and was regarded as one of the few success stories of the American campaign.

But like many other cities in the country, Tal Afar, with a population of a quarter million, has been far from immune to large scale attacks, and there have been fierce battles as American troops have fought to wrest control of the area from groups affiliated with Al Qaeda and from other insurgents.

In November last year, two suicide bombers, one in a car and the other on foot, attacked an outdoor car market in the city, which is rife with insurgents, killing at least 20 people and wounding at least 42.

In September, a bomber wearing an vest filled with explosives killed 21 people and wounded 17 when he blew himself up near a line of people waiting to receive their allotment of cooking fuel, according to Iraqi state television.

In May, a suicide bomber in a pickup truck drove into a public market and blew himself up, killing 17 people and wounding as many as 65, officials said.

Kirk Semple, Alissa J. Rubin, Ahmad Fadam and Qais Mizher contributed reporting from Baghdad, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Kirkuk, Mosul and Ramadi.

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