Iraq's parliament finally approved a new national unity government today, ending months of deadlock as bomb attacks that killed 24 people served a grim reminder of the security challenges it will face.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's cabinet was approved by a show of hands, minister by minister, after a turbulent start to the parliamentary session, when some minority Sunni leaders spoke out against the last-minute deal and several walked out.
Eleventh-hour battles over the key posts of interior and defence left those jobs vacant for now, filled respectively by Maliki, a tough-talking Shi'ite Islamist, and his Sunni deputy premier, Salam al-Zobaie.
The main Sunni Arab leadership, which controls the bulk of the Sunnis' 50-odd seats in the 275-member chamber, held firm after the walkout by the dissidents.
The chamber then approved the programme clearing the way for the government to be formally sworn in.
Just hours before parliament sat in the heavily fortified Green Zone, protected by US military firepower, a bomb killed at least 19 people in the poor Shi'ite Sadr City neighbourhood of Baghdad, blasting a spot where crowds of workers had gathered in the hope of being hired for day labouring jobs.
A further 58 people were wounded in a blast that was typical of attacks by Sunni Islamist groups like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq. Baghdad and, especially, the Shi'ite-dominated south of Iraq has also seen violence between Shi'ite factions.
Witnesses and police said the bomb appeared to have been planted in a spot where the attackers knew large crowds of men would gather shortly after dawn, hoping to be hired for a day's casual labour. Such spots have been targeted in the past.
In the Sunni town of Qaim, near the Syrian border, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive-packed vest inside a police station killing five policemen and wounding 10, police said.