Violence Rages, Talks Inch Along

Iraqi political parties have agreed on the distribution of most key ministries for a new government but are still bickering over the country’s security organs, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Tuesday.

Iraq’s sharply divided sects and ethnic groups are likely to seat a government just in time to meet Monday’s deadline, insiders predicted. But the two most sensitive ministries, Defense and Interior, might not be filled when Prime Minister-designate Nouri Maliki unveils the Cabinet.

Control of the police and military remains the sticking point of talks, and a problem for a blood-weary Iraqi public. While negotiations dragged on Tuesday, a gun battle and bombing killed at least 24 people at a parking lot in a mostly Shiite Muslim neighborhood.

The U.S. military announced Tuesday that two soldiers were killed by a roadside bomb Monday near Balad. The dean of a Baghdad college and the coach of a popular soccer team in Basra were also among those killed across the country.

The main Shiite political bloc appears poised to keep control of the Interior Ministry, but U.S. officials and rival Iraqi groups demand that Shiites appoint an independent figure to lead the sensitive and powerful domestic forces.

“Security issues are the No. 1 issue -- these are the lead ministries in the government,” said Basam Ridha, an official with the Islamic Dawa Party, a member of the Shiite bloc. “If we aren’t careful in designating a very strong person who can provide security, we won’t be able to proceed with reconstruction or move forward.”

U.S. and Iraqi officials insist that seating a unity government is the key to quieting the streets, which are beset by sectarian violence and extrajudicial killings by militias.

“The militias are attached directly to the political groups key to a unity government,” a U.S. diplomat told reporters in Baghdad. Maliki “has the backing of the political leaderships that oversee the militias.”

But the government formation has played out like an elaborate power grab, as the various religious sects and ethnicities fight bitterly to keep, or win, access to natural resources, cash and clout.

U.S. officials, who have been deeply involved in the negotiations, are pushing for competent, nonsectarian people to lead the ministries.

The prime minister and party leaders have been navigating between conflicting constituencies. Their own voters are pushing them to hand out jobs and patronage along ethnic and sectarian lines; the broader Iraqi public, seething over the street violence, wants improved security and infrastructure.

Shiite sources indicated Tuesday that the United Iraqi Alliance, the main Shiite bloc, would control 17 ministries, including Interior, Finance, Oil, Education, Commerce, Transportation, Health and Electricity. A secular coalition led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi appeared set to control the ministries of Communication, Science and Technology, Justice and Human Rights.

That leaves two Sunni Arab coalitions with the ministries of Planning, Environment, Higher Education and Women, and Kurds with the important Foreign Ministry as well as Water Resources, Housing, Industry and Culture.

The Sunnis, members of a once-privileged minority that was stripped down to underdog status with the fall of President Saddam Hussein, were already grumbling about their share of the power.

“There hasn’t been any response to our demands,” said Salman Jumayli of the Iraqi Accordance Front. “What was offered is not what we demanded.”

Even the secular Shiite bloc was disgruntled.

“They got themselves 17 ministries and they say, ‘We want to form a national unity government,’ ” Izzat Shahbandar, one of Allawi’s loyalists, said of the United Iraqi Alliance. “We will not participate in the government if the [rival Shiites] insist on the current formation and if they don’t reconsider it.”

In Baghdad, gunmen stormed a parking lot surrounded by houses and a school and, in broad daylight, killed at least five security guards. Before leaving, the attackers planted a homemade bomb.

“A car inside the parking lot exploded, tearing all those inside into pieces,” Ahmad Hadi Karam, a 34-year-old tailor who rushed to the parking lot after the gunfire, said in a telephone interview. “Metal and flesh fragments and splinters were falling over me. I lost my hearing.”

Gunmen elsewhere in Baghdad killed Abbas Ali Dahir Ani, a college dean for economics and administration, and two of his bodyguards. Four passengers in a small bus were killed in a separate shootout.

A roadside bomb in the insurgent stronghold of Yousifiya, about 10 miles south of Baghdad, killed four civilians, and gunmen went on a rampage in the religiously mixed streets of Dora. Two more bodies turned up, including one marked by torture.

Iraqi police said U.S. soldiers opened fire on a 16-year-old boy in Jadriya, a middle-class Shiite neighborhood. He died at a hospital, police said. The military said it could not confirm or deny the incident.

Meanwhile, in the increasingly restive southern city of Basra, the coach of one of Iraq’s most popular soccer teams was killed in a drive-by shooting. A group of men fired machine guns out of a sedan to kill Nazar Abdel Zahra late Monday, players on Al Mina team said.

Gunmen kidnapped a diplomat from the United Arab Emirates and wounded his guard Tuesday evening, police said.

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Times staff writers Solomon Moore, Saif Hameed, Shamil Aziz and Caesar Ahmed contributed to this report.