The attack raised to at least 2,446 the number of members of the U.S.
military who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003,
according to an Associated Press count.
At 6:10 a.m. a roadside bomb exploded in central Baghdad's Karradah shopping
district, destroying the liquor store and damaging two nearby shops. None of the
stores in the area had opened yet, and the blast caused no casualties, police
said.
"This liquor shop has been targeted three times," said Falah Hassan, 50, the
owner of one of the two damaged shops. "The first time it was hit by a grenade.
The second time gunmen stormed it, hurt its workers and stole their money.
Today, militants placed a bomb beside it," Hassan told Associated Press TV.
Some Muslim religious leaders in Iraq have tried to ban the drinking of
alcohol, even though it is legal under the country's new constitution. Many of
Baghdad's liquor stores are operated by Iraq's Christian minority, and some have
been threatened or closed by Islamist militants, who also often demand that
women wear veils while in public.
Iraq's interior ministry also announced Tuesday that it had arrested two
al-Qaida in Iraq members the day before: Salah Hussein Abdul-Razzaq in Ramadi
and Omar Ahmed Salah in Baghdad.
In other violence, according to police:
_Suspected insurgents attacked a police patrol at 7:30 a.m. Tuesday in
Kirkuk, 290 kilometers (180 miles) north of Baghdad, killing two policeman.
_A drive-by shooting killed an Iraqi man in Kut city, 160 kilometers (100
miles) southeast of Baghdad, who had served as a secret agent in Saddam
Hussein's government.
_A roadside bomb exploded at 8:30 a.m. near a police patrol in western
Baghdad, wounding one policeman.
_Gunmen in eastern Baghdad killed police 1st Sgt. Latif Abdullah, who worked
in Interior Ministry intelligence.
_Amir Latif Ali Yahya, the Electoral Commission director in Diyala province,
escaped unharmed when a roadside bomb exploded near his car in Buhriz, 60
kilometers (35 miles) north of Baghdad.
_Gunmen killed Nazar Abdel-Zahra, a manager of a local soccer team, near his
home in the southern city of Basra on Monday night. Suspected insurgents also
fired rockets at the Shat al-Arab Hotel, headquarters of the British army in
Basra, causing no casualties.
The violence came as Iraqi lawmakers alternately — and with varying degrees
of sincerity — withdrew from the Cabinet negotiations or threatened to do so,
and accused each other of greed, sectarianism and self-interest.
Deputies said Prime Minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki could announce a
partial Cabinet ahead of a constitutionally mandated May 22 deadline, taking for
himself the disputed defense and interior ministry posts.
President Jalal Talabani, however, rejected that option.
"The presidency council does not want to see such key ministries excluded,"
Talabani said Monday after meeting with his Shiite and Sunni Arab vice
presidents. "We think the entire Cabinet should be announced."
"The defense and interior ministries are important, and we have previously
agreed that they should be taken by independents agreeable to all the main blocs
in Iraq," he said.
Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, a member of the Sunni Arab Accordance Front,
said it had reached a deal with the main Shiite United Iraqi Alliance in which
the Sunnis would nominate the defense minister. In return, the Shiite bloc would
name the interior minister.
Similar deals have unraveled over the past few days.
Shiite lawmaker Ali al-Deeb, a member of al-Maliki's Dawa Party, told the AP
that "the Defense Ministry is still a problem."
Former Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's secular Iraqi List, favored to get the
defense post, accused the Sunnis of delaying the process and of stoking violence
as a pressure tactic.
"The ceiling has been set too high by the Accordance Front who claim they
represent the Sunnis. They still insist on the Defense Ministry," Wael
Abdul-Latif, the bloc's spokesman, told the AP. "But the bombs are still playing
a role in the negotiations."
