Imam killed, clashes erupt north of Baghdad

BAQUBA, Iraq, June 30 (Reuters) Gunmen killed a Sunni Arab imam after today's noon prayers and Shi'ite and Sunni fighters attacked mosques and exchanged fire in the latest sectarian violence in a volatile area northeast of Baghdad, police said.

The governor of volatile Diyala province, where Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a US air strike three weeks ago, called in the army to contain the fighting around the town of Muqdadiya, police and the governor's office said.

A Defence Ministry spokesman, speaking in Baghdad, said he was not aware of any request for military help, however.

The US military said US-led forces killed three insurgents and captured four in clashes that began yesterday in the nearby village of Khairnabat, where police and witnesses said Shi'ite militias had attacked Sunnis fleeing the town.

The large, mixed region northeast of Baghdad has seen some of the worst bloodletting since a US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein's Sunni-dominated regime in 2003.

Recent bloodshed and tit-for-tat killings have raised fears violence in Diyala could spark all-out war in Iraq despite the formation of a unity government. Earlier this month, nine severed heads were found in banana crates in the capital, Baquba.

Police told Reuters they suspected Shi'ite militiamen today fired three rocket-propelled grenades at a Sunni mosque in Muqdadiya, 90 km northeast of Baghdad, damaging the mosque's minaret but causing no casualties.

Sunni insurgents fired mortar rounds at a Shi'ite mosque in Muqdadiya in reprisal for the first attack, police said, also leaving no casualties. Both attacks took place when the mosques were crowded during Friday's prayers, police said.

The violence follows fighting in Khairnabat that police said erupted after Shi'ite militiamen yesterday attacked Sunni residents in revenge for a motorcycle bomb on Tuesday that killed 18 people in Khairnabat's market.

The US military said today the clashes ended after it called in air support. US forces then searched the village.

Muqdadiya and Khairnabat lie north of Baquba, a mixed Sunni and Shi'ite city, 65 km northeast of Baghdad.

Both al Qaeda and militias loyal to radical Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr are present in Diyala, which has a mix of sects and ethnic groups, including Shi'ite Arabs, Sunni Arabs, Sunni Kurds, Turkmen, Shi'ite Turkmen and Shi'ite Kurds.

Police and other officials said on Thursday Iranians had been captured in fighting in the area, some 90 km from the Iranian border, but there was no confirmation of that today. US officials said they were unaware of the reports.

REUTERS HS VV2258