Shiite Arab leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari was sworn in as prime minister as Iraq's first democratically elected government took office Tuesday.
One by one, al-Jaafari and members of his Cabinet walked up to a podium and pledged to defend Iraq and its people. But a number of ministries -- including the key defense and oil industries -- remained in temporary hands.
After months of wrangling, al-Jaafari negotiated a Cabinet that so far includes 15 Shiite Arab ministers, seven Kurds, four Sunnis and one Christian. Two of four deputy prime ministers were also sworn in, a Shiite and a Kurd.
The much-awaited swearing-in ceremony took place in the Green Zone, a fortified compound in Baghdad which houses all the country's key institutions.
The new interim government will take over from Iyad Allawi's US-appointed administration and will be tasked with drafting a permanent constitution for Iraq and organizing fresh elections before the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the US military reported that it had found the body of an airman who went missing when contact was lost with two US jets overflying Iraq overnight.
NBC News, citing US navy officials, said earlier that the jets had been involved in a mid-air collision. Much of Iraq was engulfed in a fierce sandstorm late Monday and overnight.
Searching continued for the other crew member.
The military also announced the death of one of its troops in a bomb attack near Baghdad airport on Monday, as the death toll from a week of bloodshed continued to mount.
Insurgents have stepped up their attacks since Jaafari announced the partial Cabinet line-up on April 28, killing close to 150 people in five days, most of them Iraqi civilians.
A senior water ministry official was gunned down in southern Baghdad in broad daylight yesterday, while three policemen were killed in separate attacks north of the capital, security sources said.
US and Iraqi forces have cracked down on suspected insurgents in response to the fresh surge in attacks. Some 100 were captured in the Baghdad area on Monday.
The US military also announced yesterday that it had killed 12 insurgents with links to al-Qaeda's Iraq frontman, the Jordanian Islamic militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, near the Syrian border.
A six-year-old child was wounded in the operation, which involved air strikes, it said.
The violence dashed hopes that the announcement of a new Iraqi government, following general elections held on Jan. 30, would undermine the insurgency.
The polls were the first since former president Saddam Hussein was toppled two years ago but the deposed dictator's Sunni Arab minority community was kept away from polling stations by boycott calls and security threats.
The Sunni Arabs had received promises from the winning Shiite alliance of key posts in the government to counterbalance their under-representation in parliament.
But after Jaafari unveiled his partial line-up, Sunni leaders complained of tokenism and even threatened to quit the government altogether.
After a last-minute deal, Sunnis were to be handed the defence ministry along with at least five other portfolios and a post of deputy premier, a Sunni MP said.
‘ABUSE OF POWER’: Lee Chun-yi allegedly used a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon and take his wife to restaurants, media reports said Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) resigned on Sunday night, admitting that he had misused a government vehicle, as reported by the media. Control Yuan Vice President Lee Hung-chun (李鴻鈞) yesterday apologized to the public over the issue. The watchdog body would follow up on similar accusations made by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and would investigate the alleged misuse of government vehicles by three other Control Yuan members: Su Li-chiung (蘇麗瓊), Lin Yu-jung (林郁容) and Wang Jung-chang (王榮璋), Lee Hung-chun said. Lee Chun-yi in a statement apologized for using a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a
Taiwan yesterday denied Chinese allegations that its military was behind a cyberattack on a technology company in Guangzhou, after city authorities issued warrants for 20 suspects. The Guangzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau earlier yesterday issued warrants for 20 people it identified as members of the Information, Communications and Electronic Force Command (ICEFCOM). The bureau alleged they were behind a May 20 cyberattack targeting the backend system of a self-service facility at the company. “ICEFCOM, under Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, directed the illegal attack,” the warrant says. The bureau placed a bounty of 10,000 yuan (US$1,392) on each of the 20 people named in
INDO-PACIFIC REGION: Royal Navy ships exercise the right of freedom of navigation, including in the Taiwan Strait and South China Sea, the UK’s Tony Radakin told a summit Freedom of navigation in the Indo-Pacific region is as important as it is in the English Channel, British Chief of the Defence Staff Admiral Tony Radakin said at a summit in Singapore on Saturday. The remark came as the British Royal Navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the HMS Prince of Wales, is on an eight-month deployment to the Indo-Pacific region as head of an international carrier strike group. “Upholding the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, and with it, the principles of the freedom of navigation, in this part of the world matters to us just as it matters in the
The High Court yesterday found a New Taipei City woman guilty of charges related to helping Beijing secure surrender agreements from military service members. Lee Huei-hsin (李慧馨) was sentenced to six years and eight months in prison for breaching the National Security Act (國家安全法), making illegal compacts with government employees and bribery, the court said. The verdict is final. Lee, the manager of a temple in the city’s Lujhou District (蘆洲), was accused of arranging for eight service members to make surrender pledges to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army in exchange for money, the court said. The pledges, which required them to provide identification
RSS