Iraq's Shiite Alliance said yesterday it would ask President Jalal Talabani to postpone the opening of parliament "for a few days" to give them more time to break a deadlock delaying the formation of a new government.
Talabani, a Kurd, announced on Monday he would convene parliament on Sunday, just meeting a constitutional deadline for him to summon lawmakers following the final results of the Dec. 15 parliamentary election being certified.
But nearly three months after the election, Iraq's political leaders are still fighting over who should be the new prime minister in Iraq's first full-term, four-year government.
The Shiite Alliance, by far the biggest bloc in the new parliament, is facing mounting pressure from would-be partners to ditch Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, whom critics say has failed to staunch sectarian violence that has killed hundreds and pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war.
The political stalemate has complicated efforts to form a national unity government of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds that Washington is promoting as the best hope of stabilizing Iraq and allowing it to begin pulling out its troops.
Iraq's Defense Ministry said the army was investigating how a gunman managed to kill Major General Mubdar Hatim al-Dulaimi, a Sunni Muslim who commanded the 10,000-strong 6th Division in Baghdad, on Monday.
The general was wearing body armor, a ministry official said. He opened the door of his four-wheel drive vehicle and a single bullet struck his head as he was putting on his helmet.
"The gunmen had very precise information," the official said.
Another Iraqi general said it was an assassination that needed inside information and proved the army, recruited by US officers over the past two years, had been infiltrated by factional militia groups ready to turn on fellow soldiers.
"The outsiders have hands on the inside," the general said.
The division, among the best equipped and strongest of Iraq's new forces, has been on the frontline of preventing a civil war after sectarian bloodshed erupted two weeks ago over the bombing of a Shiite shrine in the Sunni city of Samarra.
In the city of Hilla south of Baghdad, a car bomb wounded three police officers, police said, adding they imposed a ban on traffic in the center of the city after receiving information that suicide bombers were planning another attack.
Meanwhile, two Canadians and a Briton working for a Christian peace group who were kidnapped in Iraq three months ago issued a new plea for their release, according to a video broadcast on al-Jazeera yesterday.
The video was the first news of the men since late January, but conspicuously did not feature the US peace activist who had been kidnapped with them.
"Three hostages in Iraq pleaded with Arab Gulf leaders to help free them," the al-Jazeera news presenter said.
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