Gunmen kill eight in Baghdad, area sealed off

BAGHDAD, July 9 (Reuters) Gunmen shot dead eight people at fake checkpoints in Baghdad's Sunni Jihad district today, close to a Shi'ite mosque where a carbomb killed three people yesterday night, police said.

Residents said Shi'ite militias were killing Sunnis in retaliation for the car bombing, but this could not be independently confirmed. Several Sunni Arab politicians said they believed at least 40 had been killed.

U S and Iraqi troops have sealed off the district, police said, and U S helicopters could be seen circling overhead. The U S military said it was checking the report.

Reuters witnesses in the area heard shooting and then saw the bodies of four men lying on the side of a road.

All were bound and several blindfolded, a typical trademark of the worsening sectarian violence that has pushed Iraq towards all-out civil war.

A car bomb struck the Zahra mosque in Jihad district yesterday night, killing at least three people and wounding 19.

A number of Shi'ite and Sunni mosques have been hit in tit- for-tat attacks in the past three days.

REUTERS PKS BST1528