BAGHAD, Iraq — Gunmen stormed a bus station northeast of Baghdad today, seizing 24 people and killing all but four of them, authorities said. An Iraqi general said the victims were Shiites, but police said their identities were unclear.

The gunmen arrived in several cars at the bus station in Muqdadiyah about 6 a.m., forced the captives into four vehicles they commandeered at the scene and sped away, officials said.

Maj. Gen. Ahmed al-Awad, the commander of the Iraqi army's 5th division, told government television that 20 bodies were later found and the victims were Shiites. He said four people were rescued.

Al-Awad said the attackers separated the Shiites from the Sunnis, then took the Shiites to the nearby village of Ballour. He said nearly 400 Iraqi soldiers raided the village and rescued the four survivors. The other captives had already been moved to the area where the bodies were found, he said. Al-Awad accused local police of failing to intervene.

But police said the identities had not been determined and they didn't know whether all the dead were Shiites. The Muqdadiyah area has a slight Sunni majority and is located in a province where sectarian tension runs high.

The massacre is part of a surge in sectarian violence which began Sunday when Shiite gunmen rampaged through a Baghdad neighborhood killing Sunnis. At least 60 people were killed Tuesday across Iraq, most of them in the Baghdad area.