Iraqi PM fails to name new officials
(AP)
Updated: 2006-05-28 20:17
Last week, gunmen in Baghdad stopped a car carrying a Sunni Arab tennis coach
and two of his Shiite players, asked them to step out and then shot them.
Extremists have been distributing leaflets warning people in the mostly Sunni
neighborhoods of Saidiyah and Ghazaliyah not to wear shorts, police said.
The U.S. military has said the bodies regularly turn up of people killed in
sectarian attacks, by death squads and criminal violence — including 33 last
week in Baghdad province. U.S. military officials consider it one of their
biggest problems in the Baghdad area.
An Iraqi tennis coach and two of his players were shot to death last week in
Baghdad because they were wearing shorts.
There was no word on the fate of the two missing crew members of a U.S.
Marine AH-1 Cobra helicopter which crashed Saturday in volatile western Anbar
province. Hostile fire was not suspected as the cause of the crash, the U.S.
military said.
Iraq's fractious political, ethnic and sectarian parties again failed to
reach agreement on who will run the interior and defense ministries, despite a
promise by al-Maliki to do so within a few days of his Cabinet being sworn in
just over a week ago.
"The will not be named today," Shiite deputy Baha al-Araji said. "We hope
within three days."
There had been hopes that al-Maliki would swear in the two new ministers when
the 275-member parliament convened Sunday after the Iraq weekend.
The Shiite-dominated interior ministry has been promised to that community,
while Sunni Arabs are to get the defense ministry. It is hoped the balance will
enable al-Maliki to move ahead with a plan to take over security around Iraq
over the next 18 months and also attract army recruits among Sunni Arabs, who
make up the core of the insurgency .
The list however, has been whittled down to two candidates for the interior
ministry and three for defense.
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