More than 30 Iraqis were killed in a day of bloodshed yesterday, including an attack near Baghdad International Airport, as prime minister designate Nuri al-Maliki moved closer to announcing a Cabinet five months after elections.
Maliki was poised to unveil a Cabinet that leaves the key security ministries vacant, a prominent member of his Shiite alliance said, amid hopes that filling Iraq's power vacuum would help quell the raging violence.
Fourteen Iraqis were killed and six wounded in a pair of suicide car bombings at the checkpoint leading to the Baghdad International Airport. A total of 33 Iraqis were killed around the country.
Two vehicles packed with explosives were detonated in a parking lot near the checkpoint, the US military said in a statement, adding that the attacks did not target the base itself.
The violence came as Maliki appeared set to break weeks of deadlock over the new government by leaving the controversial interior and defense portfolios vacant and instead keeping them in his own hands for the time being.
"I think prime minister Nuri al-Maliki will announce the government without interior and defense," Bahaa al-Aaraji, a member of parliament (MP) close to Shiite radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr, told reporters on the sidelines of a parliamentary session.
"He will be the acting minister of interior and defense and then, maybe after two or three weeks, he will appoint the appropriate people for these jobs," he said.
An MP from Maliki's own Dawa party, Hassan al-Seniad, had already raised the possibility of the premier designate keeping some portfolios in his own hands as he bids to finalize a Cabinet line-up in the next 48 hours.
But the manner in which the new premier has conducted the talks drew an angry response from one of the smaller factions in his Shiite United Iraqi Alliance, which announced that it was abandoning the list on which it fought December's parliamentary elections.
"Our decision is final," said Sabah al-Saadi, spokesman for the Fadhila party, which holds 15 of the alliance's 128 seats in the 275-seat parliament.
"Even if they give us the oil ministry now, we will not rejoin the negotiations," he said.
The party held the oil ministry in the outgoing government but reports suggested the portfolio was likely to go to Shiite independent Hussein Shahristani in the new line-up.
Fadhila's walkout was matched by threats to quit the talks from the main Sunni Arab bloc, whose participation in a national unity government is seen as vital if the sting is to be taken out of the insurgency raging in Sunni areas.
"If we don't get our rights, we will review our participation in the entire political process," warned Salman al-Jumayli, an MP with the National Concord Front.
"We are still negotiating to form the government and are asking for the ministries of education, health and planning. We still have not received any answers to these demands," he said.
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