(AP)- - Suspected Shiite militiamen killed 26 Sunni Arabs in a city north of Baghdad that has been seized by a rash of sectarian bloodletting, an Interior Ministry official said Sunday.

The U.S. military, meanwhile, reported the deaths of a Marine and four soldiers.

The killings in Balad on Saturday were in apparent retaliation for the slayings of 17 Shiites whose decapitated bodies were found in an orchard on the town�s outskirts Friday. An outbreak of sectarian violence has killed 43 people so far in Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad.
Extra police flooded into the city and a curfew was imposed, Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said. Additional security measures were taken in other villages in the predominantly Sunni area, a hotbed of the insurgency battling U.S. and Iraqi forces.

The Marine was killed in combat Saturday in Anbar province, the Sunni heartland west of Baghdad, the military said.

Three soldiers died in a roadside bombing Saturday south of Baghdad, and another was killed in a roadside bombing Friday night southwest of the capital.

In eastern Baghdad Sunday, Interior Ministry Undersecretary Hala Shakir Salim survived a roadside bomb attack that killed three bystanders and two bodyguards, police Capt. Mohammed Abdul-Ghani said.