BAGHDAD — Iraq's civil war worsened Friday as Shiite and Sunni Arabs engaged in retaliatory attacks after coordinated car bombings that killed more than 200 people in a Shiite neighborhood the day before. A main Shiite political faction threatened to quit the government, a move that probably would cause its collapse and plunge the nation deeper into disarray.
The massacre Thursday in Sadr City -- a stronghold of Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr and his Al Mahdi militia -- sparked attacks around the country, reinforced doubts about the effectiveness of the Iraqi government and U.S. military and emboldened Shiite vigilantes.
In a sermon Friday, Sadr, a strong opponent of the United States, said the Pentagon's refusal to grant full control of Iraqi security forces to the Baghdad government was leaving the populace vulnerable to insurgent attacks.
And as Sadr's militiamen took matters into their own hands in battles with Sunni Arabs, his political representatives demanded that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki signal his displeasure with the U.S. military occupation by canceling a meeting with President Bush next week in Jordan.
Sadr's representatives said they would withdraw from Maliki's government if the prime minister did not meet their demands.
In spite of an emergency curfew, gunfire crackled throughout the day and mortar rounds arced over Baghdad's jagged skyline, smashing into houses of worship, residences and shops.
By Friday night, at least 65 deaths had been reported in the capital and elsewhere.
A dozen or more Sunni mosques around the country were hit by mortar rounds and gunfire or were burned down by Shiite mobs. Masked members of Sadr's militia swept through Sunni areas, setting up checkpoints and threatening to execute families that didn't leave their homes within 48 hours.
Hurriya, a mixed area of the capital, saw some of Friday's fiercest fighting. Uniformed men in police vehicles roared through the streets launching rocket-propelled grenades into houses and raking Sunni mosques with gunfire, said an Iraqi police officer stationed in the area. The attackers killed three security guards at a mosque and injured 10 worshipers inside.
"They proceeded to bombard the building with rocket-propelled grenades and hand grenades, starting a fire that consumed the structure," said the officer, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal.
Attackers ambushed
