Cabinet shake-up coming, Iraqi says

Prime Minister Nouri Maliki scolded lawmakers Sunday for putting sectarian concerns over national interests and promised sweeping Cabinet changes after complaints that his unity government has been ineffective at containing violence.

Maliki later told journalists that he had authorized the use of “extreme force” against private militias blamed for the growing bloodshed between Iraq’s dominant Muslim sects, including the deaths of nearly 100 people in 24 hours.

“There cannot be a government and militias together. One of the two should rule,” Maliki said in a session Sunday with Iraqi newspaper editors broadcast on national television. “I personally will not be in a government based on militias.”

It was unusually tough language for a leader widely criticized as failing to stand up to key members of his governing Shiite coalition, some of whom are backed by militias blamed for nightly killing rampages against the Sunni Arab minority.

The bodies of at least 33 victims of sectarian killings, many handcuffed and tortured, were found in Baghdad and Baqubah in the 24 hours ending Sunday night, officials said.

At least 66 other people were killed in bombings, drive-by shootings and other attacks Sunday, including 38 who died in twin suicide bombings at a police recruitment center in Baghdad.

Three U.S. soldiers assigned to the Army’s 1st Brigade, 1st Armored Division died Saturday of wounds sustained in combat in Al Anbar province, the military said Sunday.

Frustration has been mounting on all sides over the unrelenting toll. Sunni political leaders in recent weeks have threatened to walk out of the government, undermining a multiethnic coalition that U.S. officials had hoped would blunt the violence.

Shiites in Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, threatened to take up arms Sunday and hunt down the kidnappers of at least 11 fellow tribesmen if the government failed to find them, provincial leaders said.

There also has been intense pressure from U.S. officials, who want Maliki to commit to timelines to make the tough political and security decisions needed to contain the bloodshed.

Maliki demanded in a closed session of parliament that lawmakers set aside personal interests and partisan loyalties for the sake of national stability, according to his office.

The prime minister’s aides had previously indicated that he planned to replace a few members of his Cabinet, but Sunday’s statement suggested the changes would be broader.

Maliki asked for a free hand in shaping the new government, complaining he had no say over current members, who were selected by the main political blocs after months of wrangling.

“He even said he was only given some of the names five minutes before he announced them,” said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish legislator.

Othman did not expect the balance among Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds to change in a new government, but he said Maliki wanted to select the names within those blocs.

There was no word on when the new Cabinet would be announced.

Sunni lawmakers welcomed Maliki’s tougher stance against militias but questioned whether he would be as effective against Shiite militias as Sunni groups.

“There will be selectivity in dealing with the sides that are carrying guns for and against the government,” predicted Sunni legislator Salim Abdalla.

Underscoring the gravity of the violence, two suicide bombers joined a crowd waiting outside a Baghdad police recruitment center and detonated charges strapped to their waists, said Interior Ministry spokesman Brig. Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf.

He said the coordinated attack had “the fingerprints” of Al Qaeda in Iraq, the country’s most feared terrorist group.

The near-simultaneous blasts killed 38 people and injured more than 50, according to officials at nearby Yarmouk Hospital.

Salah Hasnawi, a 21-year-old Shiite, was among those waiting to clear security to enter the center when the attack occurred.

“I was thrown to the ground,” he said from a bed at the hospital, where he was being treated for shrapnel wounds to both legs. “I tried to run, fearing other explosions, but my legs wouldn’t carry me.”

He was saved, he said, by two Sunni men who survived the first blast unscathed, only to be wounded by the second.

“We tried to carry him to the hospital, then we felt the second explosion,” said one of the two, Mousa Zoubayi, 23. “I saw body parts scattered here and there, even in the trees and rooftops of houses that have been abandoned by their owners because of the danger in this area.”

Zoubayi’s face was burned and shrapnel had sliced into his back, arm and eye. He said he did not think Hasnawi’s other rescuer survived the second blast.

Asked whether he knew that the man he helped save was a Shiite, Zoubayi said: “I saw a man who was in need of help and that is why I helped him. It makes no difference whether he is Shiite or Sunni.”

South of the capital, in Najaf, a bomb planted in a pile of sand in front of the home of Sheik Abbas Alsarraj killed two of the Shiite cleric’s sons and injured a third, police said.

alexandra.zavis@latimes.com

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Times staff writer Saif Rasheed and special correspondents in Baghdad, Baqubah, Hillah, Kirkuk and Najaf contributed to this report.