Iraqi pilgrim children ceremoniously flagellate themselves to commemorate the feast of Ashoura near the Shiite shrine in Kazimiyah, a northern suburb of Baghdad. Ashoura falls on the 10th day of Muharram in the Islamic calendar and marks the anniversary of the death of Imam Hussein, who was killed in 680 A.D. during a battle in Karbala for leadership of the faith.

Karim Kadimi / The Associated Press

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BAGHDAD — Sunni Arabs have formed their own militia to counter Shiite and Kurdish forces as part of an attempt to regain influence they lost after Saddam Hussein was toppled.

The so-called Anbar Revolutionaries have emerged from a split in the anti-U.S. insurgency, which included al-Qaida.

They are a new addition to a network of militias that have thrived in Iraq's bloody chaos and are tied to the country's leading ethnic and political parties, now negotiating the formation of a coalition government after the Dec. 15 election, the second such poll since the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

The newly-organized militia is made up mostly of Saddam loyalists, Iraqi Islamists and other nationalists leading an insurgency against U.S. and Iraqi government forces.

Sunni officials said Sunni rebels first decided to reorganize their forces into a militia after their tactical alliance with al-Qaida, who are also Sunnis, unraveled when al-Qaida bombs began killing fellow Sunnis in recent months.

But a key motive behind the militia's emergence is to have a force on the ground to confront the Shiite Badr Brigades, whom the Sunnis accuse of killing and torturing members of their sect in death squads sanctioned by the government, officials said.

The Anbar Revolutionaries are likely to further hamper the Iraqi government's effort to impose its authority and curb rising sectarian strife between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

Meanwhile, gunmen and roadside bombs killed at least 11 people across Iraq on Monday, while police found the bullet-riddled bodies of two men in the capital, the latest victims of sectarian killings.

Angry Iraqis in the country's south, meanwhile, threw stones and shot at Danish troops following the furor over publication of caricatures of Islam's Prophet Muhammad, a Danish military official said Monday. No one was injured.

In southern Baghdad, police found the bodies of two brothers seized from their home late Sunday by men claiming to be Interior Ministry commandos, said Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq.

The two brothers, both Sunni Arabs, were found with their hands and legs bound. They had been shot repeatedly.

Sectarian tensions are high ahead of the feast of Ashoura this week, which marks the seventh century death in battle of the revered Shiite saint Imam Hussein, grandson of Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

Sunni extremists have targeted the past two Ashoura festivals. Eight suicide bombers killed 55 Shiites last year. In 2004, at least 181 people died in bombings at Shiite shrines in Baghdad and Karbala.

Ashoura-related violence has already begun this year.

In Basra, police killed a man who fired a machine gun at a group of Shiites performing Ashoura ceremonies and threw a hand grenade at police forces, said Capt. Mushtaq Khadim. Two civilians and two policemen were wounded during the clash.

An Iraqi soldier killed a member of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi militia, which was guarding a group of Shiites taking part in an Ashoura procession in northwestern Baghdad's Shula neighborhood, said police Capt. Qassim Hussein. It was unclear what sparked the incident.