Bombs killed at least 30 people in Baghdad today and sectarian attacks wrecked six Shia shrines in a rural area, adding to pressure on Iraq's rival leaders to agree on the formation of a unity government.
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| Iraqis at the scene following a roadside bomb attack that missed a police patrol, but hit a civilian bus in Baghdad this morning |
With a week left for Prime Minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki to meet a constitutional deadline to present a broad-based coalition Washington hopes will avert a slide towards civil war, a series of blasts hit Baghdad.
Two suicide bombers in cars killed 14 Iraqis at the entrance to Baghdad airport.
Violence also flared in southern Iraq where two British soldiers were killed in a roadside bomb attack in Basra. Last week, a British military helicopter came down there, possibly hit by a rocket, killing five troops and sparking clashes between British forces and militias.
US and Iraqi officials have said the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, is stepping up a campaign to target majority Shias in and around Baghdad in an attempt to provoke retaliatory attacks against minority Sunnis, dominant under Saddam Hussein, and ignite all-out sectarian warfare. There were more signs of factional wrangling over key posts delaying the formation of the government.
Mr Maliki, a Shia Islamist, has repeatedly expressed confidence he would put together a cabinet of Shias, Sunni Arabs and Kurds well within his 30-day deadline, which is fast-approaching.
Witnesses near Baghdad's airport saw three burnt out trucks and a car in a car park used by Iraqi civilians. The sprawling zone contains the civilian airport and a number of palaces once used by Saddam Hussein and now housing military bases, among them the US military headquarters. "This was not an attack on the compound," the US military said. "It targeted Iraqis congregated in a parking lot."
In other attacks in Baghdad, six people including three policemen were killed by a bomb targeting a police patrol. Four people were killed and five wounded when a bomb aimed at an Iraqi police convoy went off in northeastern Baghdad.
Near the southern holy Shia city of Kerbala, police found the bodies of five people, blindfolded, bound and with gun shots. Separately, the bodies of four brothers who worked in a humanitarian organization were found beheaded also in Kerbala.
No one was hurt in the blasts that destroyed small shrines in a rural area north of Baghdad yesterday, the latest in a string of sectarian attacks that have soared since bombs in February wrecked a major Shia shrine in Samarra and sparked communal bloodshed.
Five shrines were destroyed in Wajihiya. A sixth on a dirt road outside the village was also blown up.
Disputes over the key posts of interior, defence and oil are complicating efforts by the no-nonsene Mr Maliki to form a cabinet. Bahaa al-Araji, a legislator from a rival Shia group within Mr Maliki's Alliance bloc, said that if no agreement were reached before the deadline, Mr Maliki himself would fill in temporarily the ministries of interior and defence.
Sunni leaders have accused the Shia-run Interior Ministry of running death squads, and Mr Maliki has said he will appoint an independent with no ties to armed militias to the post.
The US ambassador has also said he wants a "non-sectarian" interior minister. Some Shia officials have accused Washington of interfering in the negotiations.