Gunmen have executed up to 50 Sunnis in an ethnically divided Iraqi town, in what appeared to be a horrific revenge attack for the slaughtering of 75 mainly Shia Muslims in a double-truck bombing only hours before.

In signs that the sectarian conflict in the north-western Iraqi community of Tal Afar is rapidly spiralling out of control, dozens of men were randomly shot in the head by rampaging gunmen in an overnight attack at the Sunni district of al-Wahda.

Police and military sources claim that the gang, some of whom may be off duty Shia policemen, stormed through the neighbourhood, firing at their victims at close range and leaving bodies piling up in homes and on Tal Afar's streets.

A doctor at the town's main hospital - still overwhelmed with casualties after the earlier double suicide bombing - this morning confirmed that all those who died had been shot in the head in deliberate execution style.

In the first of yesterday's bombing attacks, one of the bombers was reported to have lured victims to buy wheat loaded onto his truck before blowing himself up. The second exploded was in a used car lot. The death toll from the blasts was still rising this morning, as many of the injured are reported to be in a serious condition.

A doctor at Tal Afar's main hospital said that he was rapidly losing control of the situation.

"I wish you can come and see all the bodies. They are lying in the grounds. We don’t have enough space in the hospital. All of the victims were shot in the head," he told Reuters.

"No less than 45 people were killed. I’ve never seen such a thing in my life." Police and military officials later put the casualty figure at around 50.

The attacks follow an upsurge in violence in Baghdad and outside the capital in recent days which has showed no sign of abating.

US and Iraqi security forces have deployed thousands more soldiers in the Iraqi capital to try to stem a sectarian war threatening to tear the country apart, and the US has increased its own troop deployment in a controversial troop 'surge.'

The Tal Afar carnage is all the more ironic because George W Bush last year used the town as an example of the progress being made in Iraq after US-led forces freed it from al Qaeda in an offensive in 2005.

Should append this to the Dawkins thread, if only to showcase the wonders of religious differences.

You don't see scientists killing each other over the differing theories of evolution or microbiology.

 

Though that'd be cool.

I see no-one got my corny witticism then.