Iraq: No movement on new prime minister

Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari’s party will stick by him as the Shiite nominee for a second term and will put forward the name of a new candidate only if the premier decides to step aside, a top party official said today.

The comments by Ali al-Adeeb, himself mentioned a possible replacement, point to further delays in resolving the issue of al-Jaafari, which has blocked formation of a new government. The seven-party Shiite alliance has deferred to al-Jaafari’s Dawa party to decide whether to abandon him in face of opposition from Sunnis and Kurds.

“Dawa cannot present any candidate unless al-Jaafari decides to step aside,” al-Adeeb said. “So far his position has not changed. If he decides to quit, then Dawa will try to agree (by consensus) on a candidate. If not, we will resort to voting.”

Al-Adeeb said he conveyed that position to US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been pushing the Iraqis to break the impasse over al-Jaafari so a new government can be formed.

The stand-off over al-Jaafari forced Iraqi officials to delay today’s planned session of parliament for a few days to give the Shiites time to settle the issue.

Meanwhile, police today discovered the body of the brother of a prominent Sunni Arab politician who is a major player in current political talks to form a new government.

Taha al-Mutlaq, brother of Saleh al-Mutlaq, went missing nearly three weeks ago while travelling to Salahuddin province to the north.

At the time, Saleh al-Mutlaq said he thought the disappearance was politically motivated.

It was the second time in the past week that the brother of a major Sunni politician has died violently.

Last Thursday, Mahmoud al-Hashimi, whose brother heads Iraq’s largest Sunni Arab political party, was killed along with a companion as they drove through a mostly Shiite area of east Baghdad.

Political tensions are high in Iraq as leaders struggle to find consensus on who will occupy the top posts in the new government. Efforts to form the government suffered a new setback yesterday when politicians again failed to agree on a prime minister and postponed a parliament session to give the religiously and ethnically based parties more time to negotiate.

Iraqi leaders expressed optimism that decisions would be made quickly.

But that appeared unlikely. Some politicians have suggested that Dawa could put forward the names of two members – al-Adeeb and Jawad al-Maliki – as replacements for al-Jaafari.

“Al-Adeeb is no better than al-Jafaari,” Saleh al-Mutlaq said early today, before hearing of his brother’s death. ”Al-Jafaari at least has political experience – al-Adeeb has none.”

Al-Jaafari won the nomination in a vote last February by Shiite politicians due to strong support from radical anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

The mercurial young cleric, who heads the dreaded Mahdi Army militia, has vowed to stand behind the incumbent.

The bitter fight over al-Jaafari has heightened friction among the rival parties, raising the spectre of deadlock over other top jobs. Some Shiite officials say that if they must change their nominee for prime minister, other parties may not win approval of their first choices for major posts either.

For example, the Shiites rejected the Sunni nominee for parliament speaker, Tariq al-Hashimi. Disputes also emerged yesterday over the two deputy speakers and two vice presidents – jobs expected to go to Sunnis and Kurds.

“This delay will affect everything,” Sunni Naseer al-Ani said. “The Shiites did not tell us the reasons behind rejecting al-Hashimi like we did about al-Jaafari. We’re still waiting to hear the reasons.”

Voters chose the new parliament on December 15, but the legislature met briefly only once last month.

Pressure has been mounting on the Shiites to replace al-Jaafari, whom critics accuse of failing to curb sectarian tension that has soared since the February 22 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra, which triggered a wave of reprisal attacks against Sunnis.

Violence has been steady since. A gunbattle between insurgents and the Iraqi army broke out before dawn today in northern Baghdad, killing at least three civilians and wounding six others, hospital officials said.

The fighting in the mostly Sunni Arab neighbourhood of Azamiyah continued all morning. Army officials, who set up checkpoints in the area and prepared to raid homes to search for the gunmen, said they suffered no casualties.

A series of bombs exploded in Baghdad and the city of Baqouba, killing at least two people and wounding more than 15.

A roadside bomb targeted an army patrol in central Baghdad, killing a civilian and wounding nine others, including some soldiers, police said. The explosion of a bomb hidden in a garbage can near a market in New Baghdad wounded at least four civilians, and a roadside bomb targeting police wounded one policemen, also in eastern Baghdad, officials said.

In central Baqouba, which is 35 miles north-east of Baghdad, a roadside bombing near a medical clinic killed one civilian and wounded two others, police said.

In Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad, a bricklayer kidnapped two weeks ago was killed after his family was unable to pay ransom, police said.

Gunmen in the southern city of Basra kidnapped three employees of a state-run electrical company on their way to work.

The body of a Basra policeman kidnapped three days earlier was found near the Iranian border, Basra police Capt. Mushtaq Khazim said.

Also near Basra, gunmen attacked a convoy carrying the deputy culture minister, who was attending a poetry festival in the region. His bodyguards exchanged fire with the assailants but there were no casualties, a ministry spokesman said.

Back in Baghdad, police discovered 15 corpses, including 12 bullet-riddled bodies – seven of them inside one vehicle – in the southern district of Dora and three bodies in the mostly Shiite neighbourhood of Shula. Assailants attacked a police patrol in western Baghdad in a drive-by shooting, wounding two policemen, police said.