IRAQ: Shia in-fighting over who should head Iraq's vital oil ministry is delaying efforts by the prime minister-designate to form a unity government aimed at averting a slide towards civil war.
Though Nuri al-Maliki has 10 more days to form a broad-based coalition Washington hopes will foster stability and allow it to start withdrawing troops, wrangling has thwarted his plans to announce a cabinet by this week.
Political sources involved in marathon talks said there was stiff internal competition in the ruling Shia Alliance over the powerful oil job and that Shias, Sunni Arabs and Kurds were locked in disputes on the interior and defence portfolios.
Three US soldiers were killed in two separate incidents yesterday when their vehicles were hit by roadside bombs in a rural area southwest of Baghdad, bringing to at least 2,432 the number of US soldiers to die in Iraq since the invasion. Against a backdrop of mounting sectarian violence this year, factions within the alliance were wrangling over three names to head the oil ministry, key to rebuilding Iraq's crippled economy, senior negotiators said.
The fractious and unwieldy coalition has a near-majority in parliament.
There was also lack of agreement to fill the sensitive ministries of interior and defence with figures free of ties to militias that have flourished in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.
Leaders from the Sunni minority and, more discreetly, the United States, are demanding the removal of the interior minister, accused of condoning Shia police death squads.
Political appointments, including that of the president and the speaker of parliament, are being filled according to a delicate system of sectarian balance aimed at easing tensions among Iraq's competing communities. Failing to settle on even one minor post could upset Iraq's complicated political arithmetic.
"There are talks about the present deputy interior and deputy defence ministers taking over their ministries in the interim if no agreement is reached. But Maliki prefers to announce a full government, a full package," a senior Shia source said.
"He still has time and is working on it. But if May 22nd comes and there is still no deal he will look into other options."
The United States, which hailed the nomination of Mr Maliki that ended five months of political deadlock, hopes the formation of a coalition government will help quell a Sunni Arab insurgency and allow it to send home some of its 133,000 troops.
Also key to bringing stability to Iraq is dismantling powerful pro-government militias blamed for many of the sectarian killings and dumping of bodies that have plagued Iraq, particularly since the February bombing of a Shia shrine.
US military spokesman Maj-Gen Rick Lynch played down as "pure conjecture" comments by Iraqi officials that they are preparing to unify security forces in the capital to help rein in the militias.
Maj-Gen Lynch said there had been a rise in attacks on civilians as political parties inched closer to agreeing a unity cabinet. "If you compare the last 10 weeks to the period of time six months' ago, there has been an 80 per cent increase in the number of attacks against civilians." He added that 60 per cent of all casualties were now civilians. - (additional reporting by Fredrik Dahl)