Slaughter continues in Iraq

Rebels launched a series of attacks in Iraq today that left at least 24 people dead and dozens wounded as the country took its first major step toward forming a government whose most crucial task will be dealing with the insurgency.

Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for much of the bloodshed – violence in and around Baqouba, 35 miles from Baghdad, where 15 people died.

Police Colonel Mudhafar al-Jubbori the Baqouba assaults included a car bomb, three roadside bombs and small arms attacks three checkpoints.

A suicide car bombing outside a police station there killed nine people and wounded 17. The dead included the bomber, two police, three soldiers and three civilians.

In another attack near the city, a group of about 20 insurgents in five vehicles attacked an army checkpoint with assault rifles and rocket propelled grenades, killing five Iraqi soldiers. The troops fought back, killing one of the attackers. Nine people were wounded, House said.

Another car bomb exploded outside the home of an Iraqi army officer in Balad, 50 miles north of Baghdad, killing five people and injuring 24 others, said the city’s police chief, Ayad Ahmed. Hospital officials said all of the dead were bystanders.

In Baghdad, gunmen killed two police and wounded a third in a drive-by shooting in the Sadr City slum.

Two civilians were also killed when a roadside bomb targeting a joint US-Iraqi military convoy exploded in the west Baghdad.

The violence came a day after politicians set March 16 for the opening of the country’s first democratically elected parliament in modern history as a deal hardened Sunday to name Jalal Talabani, a leader of the minority Kurds, to the presidency.

The day marks the anniversary of the 1988 Saddam-ordered chemical attack on the northern Kurdish town of Halabja, which killed 5,000 people.

The more powerful prime minister’s job will go to Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a deeply conservative Shiite who leads the Islamic Dawa party. His nomination, which the Kurds have agreed to, has been endorsed by the most powerful Shiite cleric in Iraq – Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.