BAGHDAD, Iraq - Sunni Muslims from across central Iraq, alarmed by how easily Shiite Muslim fighters had attacked their mosques during last week's clashes, said Monday that they were sending weapons to Baghdad and were preparing to dispatch their own fighters to the Iraqi capital in case of further violence.

While no central Sunni group appeared to be coordinating the movement of weapons and people, the widespread claims were seen as the first evidence that Sunnis are organizing to combat Shiite militias, which had mustered thousands of armed men to control many Baghdad neighborhoods after last week's bombing of one of Shiite Islam's holiest shrines.

Iraq was calmer Monday, but the Sunni preparations suggested that the country is still in danger of descending into civil war.

Violence peaked last Wednesday and Thursday, after the bombing of the shrine in the predominantly Sunni city of Samarra touched off reprisals against Sunni mosques in Baghdad. Sunni leaders who pulled out of talks aimed at establishing a new government in the wake of the violence said Sunday that they'd rejoin the negotiations.

While outright civil war has been avoided for now, tensions remain high, and Sunnis throughout Iraq were vowing to be better prepared should violence break out again.

Sunnis in several Iraqi cities said last week's clashes showed that they weren't as prepared for civil strife as their Shiite rivals.

"I will be the first to go to Baghdad ... and help defend the mosques," said Mustafa Adnan, 27, a graduate engineering student from Fallujah, west of Baghdad. "It will not happen again. If the Shiites want to do that again, it will be over our dead bodies."

Residents expressed similar sentiments In Diyala province, north of Baghdad. "There is tension all over Diyala," said Dawood Salman, a 38-year-old mechanic from Baqouba. "Once we hear of any attack in Baghdad, we will immediately take our weapons and head there to fight. Even if the Iraqi forces close the roads, we will find a way."

Sunni leaders claim that more than 100 Sunni mosques in Baghdad were vandalized or destroyed in retaliation for the explosion Wednesday at the Askariya shrine in Samarra, a revered Shiite holy site. The blast destroyed the shrine's golden dome.

No group claimed responsibility for the explosion, but Shiites quickly blamed Sunni insurgents and retaliated against Sunni mosques, setting some afire and shooting at others.

Many Sunnis blamed Shiite militiamen for the destruction and said they were ashamed that they hadn't done a better job of defending their mosques.

Residents in Tikrit, Kirkuk, Fallujah and Baqouba, all predominantly Sunni cities, said they either were shipping weapons or preparing in other ways to protect Sunni mosques.

Several residents in Anbar province told Knight Ridder they were sneaking weapons into western Baghdad by back roads to avoid checkpoints. They asked not to be named.

The government denied that Sunnis were moving weapons to Baghdad, but evidence of such movements came elsewhere.

A spokesman for Muqtada al-Sadr, whose Mahdi Army militia controls Baghdad's predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City, said some Sunni-bound weapons shipments had been captured, including a weapons-packed ambulance that was stopped at a checkpoint Thursday.

The spokesman, Qais al-Hamdani, said the ambulance's driver confessed that he was taking the weapons to a Sunni mosque.

"We handed them over to the police station," al-Hamdani said. Efforts to reach the police station for comment were unsuccessful.

In the Sunni stronghold of Fallujah, a police officer, Mohammed al-Dulaimy, said he thought that the government had imposed curfews and a ban on travel among provinces last week in part to stop residents and weapons from entering Baghdad from his city.

Sunni politicians confirmed that many Sunnis outside Baghdad had volunteered to join the battle in the capital, but said they'd discouraged such activities.

"I received phone calls from women and men alike offering to defend mosques. They are driven. ... We asked our people to calm down. They kept saying, `We are not weak. We want to fight,'" said Harith Obeidi, a Sunni and newly elected Parliament member. Some Sunnis in "the provinces offered us tens of men. But we rejected it because it might lead to civil war."

The rivalry between the Sunni and Shiite branches of Islam dates back centuries and revolves around who each branch believes should have succeeded Muhammad as the leader of the Muslim faithful.

In more recent times, the Sunni-dominated regime of Saddam Hussein bitterly oppressed Iraqi Shiites, even though they account for two-thirds of the country's population.

Since Saddam's toppling, Shiites have moved to the fore. Shiite-dominated political parties were victorious in both general elections in 2005, and Sunnis have complained since that government forces have targeted their communities with death squads.

Shiite militias have been visible throughout Iraq since Saddam's regime ended. Among the most prominent are the Badr Organization, which is aligned with the political party the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, and al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, which battled U.S. forces on many occasions before a cease-fire last year.

True Sunni militias have yet to make an appearance. While the insurgency is predominantly Sunni, its leadership remains largely invisible and its organization unclear.

Observers said the formation of Sunni armed groups to combat Shiites would be an ominous development.

"If this happens, Iraq will stay under the control of armed camps. And the government will never control anything," said Judith Yaphe, a former CIA analyst and Iraq specialist at the National Defense College.

Politicians remained hopeful that a new government would include Sunnis. They said that since the bombing, negotiations had been more cordial and Sunni leaders appeared interested in reaching an agreement.

"We have calmed our people down and told them that we can solve this peacefully," said Mahmoud al-Mashadani, a Sunni political leader who's part of the negotiations. "We are working now to create a government that can guarantee their rights and safety."

Shiite leaders said they too were hopeful of avoiding further violence. Al-Sadr spokesman al-Hamdani noted that the cleric said Sunday that his followers should respect all shrines.

Knight Ridder Newspapers special correspondents Huda Ahmed and Mohammed al Awsy contributed to this report. A special correspondent who can't be named for security reasons also contributed.