One of Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab groups endorsed the prime minister’s national reconciliation plan today, and the government announced new benefits to help freed detainees return to normal lives.

Insurgents killed more than three dozen people in a series of attacks that foiled stringent security measures around Baghdad after an al-Qaida threat to stage bloody reprisals for the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

A top government official said today that Iraq has an agreement to take over security responsibilities from foreign forces in the south of the country this month.

Deputy prime minister Salam Zikam Ali al-Zubaie today said that Iraq had an agreement to take over security responsibilities from foreign forces in southern Iraq this month.

Iraq Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said he may be ready to name his nominees for defence and interior minister, the two men who will likely lay the groundwork for carrying out his pledge to take over security around within 18 months, and eventually open the way for US troops to go home.

A bomb killed 19 people and wounded 58 in a Shiite district of Baghdad today as parliament prepared to inaugurate the country’s first fully constitutional government since the collapse of Saddam Hussein three years ago.