By Ibon Villelabeitia and Mussab Al-Khairalla

BAGHDAD, Mar 14 (Reuters) It didn't take long for the wave of sectarian hatred that washed over Iraq last month to hit the Baghdad home of the Samarrai family -- just a few hours, in fact, before black-clad militiamen came calling.

Screaming for revenge for the bombing at dawn that day of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra, about 40 gunmen burst into the villa of the Sunni Muslim family who, as their name suggests, have roots in the mainly Sunni city of Samarra, north of Baghdad.

Brandishing Kalashnikov rifles, the men dragged Ziad al- Samarrai, 39, from the house, kicked and punched him in front of his mother, threw him into the boot of a car and sped away.

Then things got worse. The band returned half an hour later, neighbours said, to the religiously mixed district of eastern Baghdad where the Samarrai family has lived for 20 years.

They pursued Ziad's 60-year-old mother to the home of a Shi'ite neighbour where she had sought refuge and shot her dead.

Ziad's ordeal lasted about seven hours, into the night. He was blindfolded and beaten with cables, he said, showing his wounds. His captors dropped burning plastic on his legs.

Dumping him back on a city street that same night, the gunmen threatened to kill him and ''everybody you know'' if they did not get out of Baghdad. He now thinks of little but fleeing.

''I see the image of my dead mother in my sleep,'' Ziad told Reuters as he drank coffee last week, nursing his wounds and lying low at the home of friends elsewhere in the capital.

''We were targeted because we are Sunnis from Samarra.'' His account is typical of many and was corroborated in interviews with other family members known to Reuters reporters and with neighbours in the modestly prosperous Palestine Street district, where Sunnis and Shi'ites live side-by-side, close to the Sadr City slum where Shi'ite militiamen are a major force.

MISSING

Fear that Iraq is descending into all-out civil war, three years after US-led forces overthrew Saddam Hussein's minority Sunni-dominated government, has prompted others to flee homes where they felt exposed or to join neighbourhood patrols.

Officials, clearly anxious to play down the bloodshed, put the death toll in days of sectarian violence after the February 22 bombing of the Golden Mosque in Samarra at some 500.

Many suspect the toll may be higher, given the numbers of people who have simply disappeared. Tales are legion over the past months of armed men, some in police and other uniforms, seizing people from their homes, never to be seen again. Like many families in Baghdad, home to 7 million people, it had happened to the Samarrais even before February 22.

Four months ago, gunmen who identified themselves as Interior Ministry commandos seized Ziad's 20-year-old cousin and one of his uncles, family members told Reuters.

The two men were taken after commandos raided one of the family's businesses and the two have been missing since then.

''We looked for them at the Interior Ministry and at local police stations,'' said Suha, Ziad al-Samarrai's aunt.

''We have been going to the morgue every week to see if we can find them there, but we haven't heard anything about them ever since the day they were taken,'' she said.

Sunni leaders accuse the Shi'ite-run Interior Ministry of running death squads in a dirty war that may be meant to target Sunni insurgents but also traumatises whole communities.

Shi'ites too complain of night-time sectarian killings.

The discovery of bodies, many bearing signs of torture, is a daily occurrence in Baghdad. Last week, 18 men from the Sunni suburb of Abu Ghraib were found garrotted in a minibus.

The government admits some uniformed forces may be out of control but says it is trying to stamp out abuses. In a report this month, the US State Department said killings by the government or its agents increased in 2005 and that militias dominated many police units.

SCREAMING After the gunmen sped away with her son Ziad, Buthaina al- Samarrai called her sister: ''She was crying on the phone and wanted me to go to her,'' the sister said. ''The house had been ransacked ... She was screaming and beating herself.'' The sister, who did not want to be named, left to try to organise help in finding Ziad al-Samarrai. Then she heard shots.

Neighbours said later that gunmen had returned and found Buthaina al-Samarrai in one of the neighbours' homes. They took her to a separate room and shot her dead despite neighbours' pleas.

''I went and saw her covered with a bed sheet. I removed the cover and saw her face disfigured by the bullets. I was terrified and ran into the street screaming,'' her sister said.

Ziad said his captors tortured him into confessing he was a ''Wahhabi terrorist,'' referring to the austere school of Sunni Islam practised in Saudi Arabia and by al Qaeda militants.

''They asked me if I listened to Osama bin Laden or to Sistani,'' he said, referring to Iraq's top Shi'ite cleric.

''I told them that I listened to music, watched Western movies and drank alcohol.'' Samarrai, who had some of his teeth knocked out, said he just wants out now: ''I want to leave Iraq as soon as I can. I want to seek asylum in any non-Arab country I can find.''

REUTERS