11 killed in Baghdad bomb blast

A roadside bomb rocked an eastern Baghdad Shiite neighbourhood early today, killing at least 11 people and injuring 19 others when it exploded next to buses used by morning commuters.

Elsewhere, embattled Prime Minister Nouri Maliki met behind closed-doors with Iraq’s top Shiite cleric in Najaf to brief him over efforts to fill Cabinet jobs vacated when ministers from the largest Sunni Arab bloc and the movement of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr pulled out to protest the prime minister’s policies.