Gunmen shot and killed 23 members of an ancient religious sect in northern Iraq after stopping their bus and separating out followers of other faiths, while car bombings in the capital killed at least another 20 people.Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, in Egypt to increase support among Arab leaders for his Shiite-led government, told Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that Iraq was not embroiled in a civil or sectarian war. Key Arab leaders pressured him Sunday to step up reconciliation efforts to include Sunni insurgents if he expects Arab support.
In the northern Iraq attack, armed men stopped a bus carrying workers from a textile factory in Mosul to their hometown of Bashika, which has a mixed population of Christians and Yazidis -- a primarily Kurdish sect that worships an angel figure considered to be the devil by some Muslims and Christians. (Watch why the Senate majority leader says the war is "lost" )
The gunmen checked the passengers' identification cards, then asked all Christians to get off the bus, police Brig. Mohammed al-Wagga said. With the Yazidis still inside, the gunmen drove them to eastern Mosul, where they were lined up along a wall and shot to death, al-Wagga said.
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