BAGHDAD, July 9: Bands of masked gunmen went on a rampage on Sunday in a Baghdad area dominated by a particular sect, killing at least 42 people in a gruesome sectarian attack despite a massive security crackdown, witnesses said.

The apparent response to the attacks was swift, with at least 15 people killed and 35 wounded in two powerful car bombs next to a rival sect’s mosque in Adhamiyah on the capital’s north side, an interior ministry official said.

Earlier gunmen began killing people after setting up fake checkpoints in the western Baghdad neighbourhood of Jihad and also raiding people’s homes, witnesses said.

“They also went into certain … houses and killed everyone inside,” a witness who declined to be named told AFP.

“Outside the mosque, I saw the bodies of 10 men, all shot in the head, and they showed severe signs of torture,” said Sheikh Abdel Samad al-Obeidi, the Imam of the Fakhri Shanshal mosque in the neighbourhood, which was bombed on Friday, killing two.

“I blame the Mehdi Army militiamen for this killing — it is all in the open now,” he added, referring to the armed group linked to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

He also accused police commandos, who have checkpoints in the area, of being ‘complicit in the crime for turning a blind eye.’

In the run-up to Sunday’s rampage, holy places of the two sects were increasingly targeted in ongoing civil strife in Baghdad, with the Fatima Zahra mosque being bombed on Saturday, killing seven and wounding 17.

Sunday’s rampage came despite an ongoing security operation in the capital since mid-June involving tens of thousands of troops patrolling the streets.

In other incidents, at least eight people were killed including two clerics from the powerful Muslim Scholars Association.

Meanwhile, the abductors of Taiseer al-Mashhadani, a woman MP, demanded the release of 25 prisoners held in US jails in Iraq in return for her freedom, a politician told AFP.