Politicians consider a reshuffling
Bombs, mortar rounds and shootings left more than 40 Iraqis dead Wednesday as politicians met to discuss a possible Cabinet shake-up in an attempt to improve the government’s track record on stemming violence.
The Shiite-dominated government of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki faces domestic and international pressure to secure streets and provide services. Maliki blames his government’s shortcomings in part on the ministers appointed under pressure from his coalition partners. Talks between Maliki, Cabinet officials and political party leaders were underway Wednesday to reshuffle the posts.
“We’re trying to strengthen the position of the prime minister,” said Diya Din Fayyad, a Shiite Muslim member of parliament. “There’s an agreement to change the ministries.”
In Wednesday’s deadliest incident of sectarian violence, an explosives-packed car blew up in a crowded bus terminal in a mostly Shiite district of eastern Baghdad, killing 10 Iraqis and injuring 25 during the morning rush hour.
Apparent Sunni insurgents killed at least five civilians and injured 13 in two other explosions set off in New Baghdad, another mostly Shiite neighborhood of the capital.
Gunmen kidnapped a ranking advisor to the Shiite-dominated Ministry of Transportation in eastern Baghdad.
Suspected Shiite militants also struck at Sunnis. An Interior Ministry official reported the discovery of at least 21 unidentified bodies in and around the capital. Most had been shot multiple times, and several showed signs of torture.
Mortar rounds struck a neighborhood of mostly Palestinian immigrants in eastern Baghdad, killing one person and injuring six. The Sunni Arab Palestinians, favored under the regime of Saddam Hussein, are at times targeted by armed Shiite groups.
Mortar rounds also struck a government building near the southern city of Hillah, killing at least one civilian and injuring two.
Violence also erupted Wednesday in the northern oil city of Kirkuk, claimed by Iraq’s Kurds, Arabs and Turkmens.
A pair of suicide bombers rammed into the entrance of an Iraqi army base near the city, killing at least two soldiers and injuring eight.
Roadside bombs in Kirkuk killed a police officer and a woman. An Iraqi explosives expert also died in Kirkuk when a bomb he was trying to dismantle exploded.
Police also discovered the body of an unidentified man, shot multiple times and bearing signs of torture in the style of killing often associated with sectarian death squads in the capital.
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Special correspondents in Baghdad, Hillah and Kirkuk contributed to this report.
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