Iraq PM says unity Government close, bomber kills 17

BAGHDAD - Iraq's prime minister-designate said yesterday he was close to forming a government that would end five months of stalemate marked by a lurch to civil war.

But senior negotiators said there was much hard bargaining left before Nuri al-Maliki could present to parliament the sort of national unity coalition he and Iraq's US backers hope can drag the nation back from the brink of sectarian conflict.

A suicide car bomber killed 17 people and wounded 35 at a market in the northern city of Tal Afar, recently held up by President George W Bush as an example of progress being made in freeing Iraq from violence by al Qaeda and other guerrillas.

It was one of the worst attacks of recent weeks and came after the US military published what it said was new evidence of despondency among Sunni rebels, in the form of a purported captured al Qaeda document detailing their setbacks in Baghdad.

Maliki, a Shi'ite Islamist whose nomination ended months of factional deadlock, has another two weeks to name a cabinet but told a news conference he might do it "today or tomorrow".

"We have achieved much and there is little left to do," he told a news conference where he impressed observers with a lucid style that wasted few words. "We have done 90 per cent."

The apparent breakthrough, following heavy pressure from the United States, comes after rival Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni groups agreed to fill the sensitive ministries of interior and defence with figures free of ties with militias, Maliki said.

Sunni leaders - and, less vocally, the United States - are demanding the removal of the present interior minister, accused of condoning Shi'ite death squads in the police. But there was still no agreement on who should take his place, officials said.

Among other posts still undecided, Maliki said, were oil, trade and transport - key to rebuilding the crippled economy.

A senior negotiator said an agreement on the few ministries left could be more complicated than Maliki appeared to suggest, however: "We have too many names for the jobs left, but each candidate is facing objection from one of the other blocs."

Another highlighted a contest for the oil ministry between technocratic and secular former minister Thamir Ghadhban and Hussain al-Shahristani, a leading Shi'ite Islamist politician.

He called the fate of the ministry, the battered controller of the world's third biggest oil reserves and provider of almost all of Iraq's national income, a litmus test for Maliki's will to favour technical competence over sectarian arithmetic:

"It'll be a test of Maliki's commitment," the official said.

Though seen as a Shi'ite hawk when named last month, Maliki insisted he was ready to reach out to Sunni rebels who laid down their arms and joined the US-backed political process.

Seen as open, energetic and decisive, Maliki has admirers among the Kurds and Sunnis who blocked the appointment of his ally and predecessor Ibrahim al-Jaafari. He sought to hang on to his job after an undistinguished year as interim premier.

While the politicians wrangled after December's election, Iraq pitched toward sectarian civil war in the bloodshed and refugee movements that followed the destruction of a major Shi'ite shrine in Samarra in late February.

The United States hopes the formation of a broad-based government will help quell a Sunni Arab insurgency and allow it to begin withdrawing its 133,000 troops in Iraq. At least 2420 American soldiers have been killed in the Iraq war.

One was killed by a roadside bomb in Baghdad on Monday.

"The formation of a government of national unity will set the stage for efforts to diminish violence," the US ambassador to Baghdad, Zalmay Khalilzad, said at a conference in neighbouring Jordan intended to drum up investment in Iraq.

"Iraq is strategically heading in the right direction now."

But in fresh violence, police on Tuesday retrieved from the Tigris river south of Baghdad 11 bodies, nine of which were beheaded, including a 10-year-old boy. It said all of them were bound and had been killed four or five days ago.

Seven of the victims wore Iraqi security forces uniforms.

The motives behind the killings were not clear but sectarian bloodshed has forced tens of thousands to flee their homes.

Among Maliki's early tasks once a government is formed may be holding a much postponed national reconciliation conference. A spokesman for Iraq's president said there were tentative arrangements being made for a gathering in Baghdad next month.

An earlier version in November, hosted by the Arab League in Cairo, was followed by December's election in which Sunni leaders, including some rebel groups, encouraged their community to take part in large numbers for the first time.

- REUTERS