A coalition of three Sunni Arab parties holding 44 seats warned that it would
withdraw from the political process if it did not get at least one key post such
as the Defense Ministry.
That threat came several days after Shiite party with 15 lawmakers pulled out
of the Cabinet talks because it was not given the Oil Ministry.
The surge in violence came one day before the resumption of Saddam Hussein's
trial after a three-week break. The deposed leader and seven co-defendants are
on trial for the killings of 148 people from Dujail after a 1982 assassination
attempt in the town against Saddam.
The U.S. command said a roadside bomb just after dark Sunday killed two U.S.
soldiers in east Baghdad. The military gave no other details on the deaths. At
least 2,439 U.S. military personnel have died since the Iraq war began in 2003,
according to a count by The Associated Press.
On Monday, suspected insurgents hit a British military camp with a mortar
barrage, wounding four soldiers, officials said.
The attack came about 4:30 a.m. at Camp Abu Naji in Amarah, 180 miles
southeast of Baghdad, said Calee Gedoll, a British Ministry of Defense
spokeswoman in Basra. One of the British soldiers was badly hurt in the leg, but
the others' injuries were not as serious, said Holly Wheeler, a ministry
spokeswoman in London.
Baghdad's deadliest attack Sunday involved the twin suicide car bombs that
exploded near a main checkpoint on a four-lane road leading to Baghdad's
international airport. The blasts killed at least 14 Iraqis and wounded six.
Twelve other Iraqis were killed in Baghdad by four roadside bombs, three that
targeted Iraqi police patrols and one that exploded in an open market. At least
10 people were killed in the city Saturday.
The attack on the airport road was the most serious in months. Attacks had
decreased since last year because of increased security along the six-mile
stretch of highway leading from central Baghdad to the airport — often
considered the most dangerous road in the world.
The weekend also saw attacks on a string of small Shiite Muslim shrines east
of Baqouba, capital of the religiously mixed Diyala province 35 miles northeast
of Baghdad that has been a flash point of sectarian violence.
"These shrines are not only visited by Shiite Muslims, because they are not
only Shiite imams but they are imams for all Muslims," Diyala Gov. Raid Rashid
al-Mula Jawad said.
He said the shrines, often the size of a room or smaller, had "no protection
because they are simple ones that some people use as graveyards."
The attacks were the latest in a surge of sectarian violence that erupted
with the Feb. 22 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, an escalation
that has worsened security and led to fears of civil war between Sunnis and
Shiites.
"Such acts anger God and hurt the feeling of all honest Iraqis," Shiite
cleric Adnan al-Rubaie said in Baqouba on Sunday. "The goal is clear — to ignite
civil strife. God's curse on everybody who tries to create sedition in this
country."
