48 die in attack on Baghdad Shiite slum
(AP)
Updated: 2006-03-13 19:01

Bomb blasts, rocket and gunfire also killed at least 12 other people — 10 in Baghdad — and wounded 34 Sunday. The low thud of mortar fire periodically rumbled over the city.

The Sadr City bombers struck shortly after U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and leaders of Iraq's main ethnic and religious blocs concluded a news conference to announce agreement to move forward the first session of the new parliament to Thursday.

The political leaders said they would open marathon meetings on Tuesday in an attempt to reach agreement on a new government. Khalilzad said he would be available to join the talks at any time.

Among the issues to be discussed are how many positions various blocs will get in the new government, which will fill key posts and the government's program of action.

The first parliamentary session will take place three months after Dec. 15 elections and a month after the results were certified. It sets in motion a 60-day deadline for the legislature to elect a new president, approve the nomination of a prime minister and sign off on his Cabinet.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, stood by Shiite leader Adbul-Aziz al-Hakim and other Kurdish, Sunni Arab and secular leaders to make the announcement.

Khalilzad said a permanent government needed to be in place quickly to fill the "vacuum in authority" at a time of continuing effort by "terrorists to provoke sectarian conflict."

"To deal with the threat, (there is) the need on an urgent basis to form a government of national unity," Khalilzad said.

Al-Hakim, head of the powerful Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, agreed that forming a government was imperative.

"There was a determination from all the leaders to assume their responsibility to deal with this crisis. We have to get Iraq out of the situation it is in now," he said, standing outside Massoud Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party headquarters.

Present in addition to Khalilzad, Talabani, al-Hakim and Barzani were Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of the largest Sunni bloc in parliament and Adnan Pachachi, a secular Sunni representing Ayad Allawi, a Shiite and former prime minister.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Al-Jaafari, a Shiite, did not attend the meeting in the U.S.-controlled Green Zone but met earlier Sunday with Talabani.