Shouting for revenge after the slaying of 14 Shi?ite workers, black-clad militias killed at least 31 people in a spasm of sectarian violence in a town north of Baghdad, police, doctors and local residents said yesterday.

Militiamen riding in pick-up trucks set up fake checkpoints on Saturday in Balad, a town 80 km (50 miles) north of Baghdad, stopping vehicles and checking IDs in response to the killing of the workers, whose bodies were found on Friday in a nearby orchard with their throats slit and hands and legs bound.

Some of the bodies brought to the hospital in the last 24 hours were mutilated and bore signs of torture from what appeared to be reprisal attacks across Balad, said Qasim al-Qaisi, head of Balad hospital.

He said most of the bullet-riddled bodies were Sunni Arab men.

?We are preparing ourselves to receive more bodies as long as the situation can get worse,? Qaisi told Reuters. ?Sectarian killing is sweeping the area.?Gunmen were roving Balad yesterday and residents said the town was tense. Hamad al-Qaisi, governor of central Salaheddin province, traveled to Balad along with the province?s police chief to restore calm, officials said.

Iraq has been gripped by sectarian violence between Muslim Sh?ites and Sunnis since the February bombing of a Shi?ite shrine. Thousands have been killed in tit-for-tat revenge killings and more than 300,000 have fled their homes.

The violence in Balad, a mostly Shi?ite town surrounded by Sunni areas, appeared to be a microcosm of the communal violence that is pushing Iraq to the brink of civil war.

<B>U.S. toll mounts</B>

The Shi?ite laborers, who were from Balad, were found in nearby Dhuluiya, a mostly Sunni town. The two communities are separated by the Tigris River.

A police source said fake checkpoints set up at the entrance of Balad were still manned on Sunday by unknown militia checking IDs of the residents.

Meanwhile, three U.S. soldiers were killed near Baghdad, the U.S. military said, adding to a toll that, at the current pace, could make October the deadliest for U.S. forces since January 2005.

More than 40 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq this month, a rise U.S. commanders have attributed to a surge in violence during the holy month of Ramadan and more aggressive U.S. operations in Baghdad against sectarian death squads.

At least five American soldiers died on Saturday, including the three killed south of Baghdad when their vehicle was struck by a roadside bomb. Two to three soldiers on average die every day in Iraq, most the victims of roadside bombs.

In other violence, four car bombs, three of them driven by suicide attackers, killed at least seven people and wounded 60 in the ethnically mixed city of Kirkuk yesterday, Major General Toran Abdul-Rahman, Kirkuk?s deputy police chief said.

One of the blasts went off near an Iraqi security force, which is also near a school for girls.Oil-rich Kirkuk, north of Baghdad, is disputed by Sunni Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen. Its final status is one of Iraq?s most sensitive issues.

<B>Ibon VILLELABEITIA</B>