The next morning, after the Sunnis had left, Iraqi security forces and dozens of Shiite militia fighters arrived and marched from home to home in search of insurgents and sympathizers in the rural community, dotted by date palms and orange groves.
According to accounts by Shiite tribal leaders, two eyewitnesses and politicians, what happened next was brutal.
“There were men in civilian clothes on motorcycles shouting ‘Ali is on your side,’ ” one man said, referring to a key figure in Shiite tradition. “People started fleeing their homes, leaving behind the elders and young men and those who refused to leave. The militias then stormed the houses. They pulled out the young men and summarily executed them.”
-- Ned Parker, Ahmed Rasheed and Raheem Salman's "Before Iraq polls, Shiite militias unleashed war on Sunni insurgents" (Reuters).
