Iraqi PM fails to name new officials
(AP)
Updated: 2006-05-28 20:17
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki once again failed to
reach agreement Sunday on naming a new defense and interior minister as
parliament reconvened after a four-day break.
Two Iraqi police officers, watched by an Iraqi
soldier, far left, run for cover as a second roadside bomb explodes
shortly after a first targeting a police and army patrol in Tahariyat
square in central Baghdad, Iraq Sunday, May, 28, 2006.
[AP] |
Naming strong but neutral ministers is considered crucial for any plan to
restore security and stability to strife-torn Iraq.
Rampant violence claimed three lives and injured 21 people just after dawn
when a pair of bombs ripped through central Baghdad. The bombs, designed to kill
the maximum number of people, were planted next to each other and were detonated
in succession in Baghdad's Tahariyat Square, police 1st Lt. Thaeir Mahmoud said.
Many of the injured were gawkers who had rushed to the scene of the fist
explosion.
The head of the provincial council in Diyala, a mixed but tense province
north of Baghdad, escaped an assassination attempt that killed one of his
bodyguards and injured six others. Ibrahim Bajlan was uninjured when a car bomb
detonated next to his convoy in the Imam Weis area, 44 miles north of the
provincial capital Baqouba.
The fresh violence came amid rising fears in the Iraqi capital that
extremists seeking to force Baghdad residents to follow strict Islamic practices
were now targeting men in shorts, liquor stores and even barbers. Gunmen in
recent months have even killed people drinking beer along the banks of the
Tigris river.
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