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Iraqis don't agree on prime minister

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published April 17, 2006

BAGHDAD - Efforts to form a unity government suffered a new setback Sunday as Iraqi leaders postponed a Parliament session after failing to agree on a prime minister.

Elsewhere, bombs targeted Shiites near a mosque and on a bus as attacks nationwide killed at least 35 people. Four more Marines were reported killed in fighting west of Baghdad as the U.S. death toll for this month rose to 47, compared with 31 for all of March.

U.S. officials think the best way to stem the violence is for the Iraqis to establish a government comprising Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds, paving the way for the United States to start withdrawing its 133,000 troops.

But progress has stalled over Sunni and Kurdish opposition to the Shiite choice of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to head the new government.

With Jaafari refusing to step aside, acting speaker Adnan Pachachi called a Parliament session for today, hoping the full legislature could agree on a new leadership after the politicians failed.

With little progress on the political front, Iraq's slide toward chaos continued.

Four Marines - three from Regimental Combat Team 5 and one from the 2/28 Brigade Combat Team - died Saturday in Anbar province, the U.S. command said Sunday.

At least 10 people died in a car bombing near a Shiite mosque in an outdoor market in Mahmoudiya, 20 miles south of Baghdad, police said. Three others were killed when a bomb exploded on a minibus in a Shiite area of Baghdad, police said.

Earlier Sunday, six people were killed when U.S. troops stormed a house looking for an al-Qaida suspect in Youssifiyah, 12 miles south of Baghdad, the U.S. military said.

Six people, including the suspect, were arrested. The military didn't identify the suspect but said he worked with foreign fighters to plan bombings.

In other developments, gunmen killed seven people in Mosul as they drove from a police station where they had been working on renovations, and a minibus north of Baqubah also came under fire and five passengers were killed, police reported.

Brig. Gen. Abbas Maadal said 29 policemen remain unaccounted for three days after their convoy was ambushed near the U.S. base at Taji, north of Baghdad. Nine police were killed in the attack Thursday night. Officials were trying to determine if the missing police were dead, captured or hiding.

[Last modified April 17, 2006, 01:23:23]