Baghdad: 1 091 dead in April

2006-05-10 22:01

Baghdad - Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Wednesday that 1 091 people were killed in sectarian violence in Baghdad alone last month.

Talabani urged quick efforts to quell the raging Shi'ite-Sunni communal bloodshed.

"We are shocked and angry at the daily reports of unidentified bodies being discovered and of people killed on the basis of their identity."

The Iraqi parliamentary session ended with no mention of the country's anticipated new cabinet.

The country's parliament will reconvene on Sunday.

Talabani said the number of people killed in the violence would be "alarming if we include the number of bodies still missing across Iraq".

Talabani said the "institutional weakness", a lack of government, was "benefiting the terrorists".

After nearly five months since the December elections for the country's first full-term post-Saddam parliament, Iraq is still without a government because of wrangling between leaders over ministerial berths.

Killings are Shi'ite reprisals

Raging sectarian violence has left thousands dead across Iraq, mostly Sunni Arabs.

The killings are Shi'ite reprisals after the bombing of a Shi'ite shrine in Samarra on February 22.

A Sunni-backed insurgency in the country has left more than 35 000 civilians dead, according to some estimates, since the end of the United States-led invasion of Iraq in April 2003.

In the latest attacks, 16 people were killed across Iraq on Wednesday - including 12 in an ambush near Baquba, just north of Baghdad.

A Baquba police officer said gunmen ambushed a minibus carrying employees of the local electricity company and "sprayed it with bullets".

Twelve were killed and four others wounded.

The Baquba attack came shortly after a deadly suicide truck-bombing in a market in Tal Afar on Tuesday, which left 24 people dead.

The US military said 134 others were wounded in the attack.

Iraqi parliamentarians began a parliament session, for the fourth time since it was elected in December, on Wednesday.

Cabinet was '90%' ready

Iraqi prime minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki was expected to unveil the first permanent post-Saddam cabinet.

The session was interrupted when the speaker, Mahmud Mashhadani, stormed out of the hall after an argument with Shi'ite MP Ghofran al-Saadi.

On Tuesday, Maliki said the cabinet was "90%" ready and predicted the long-awaited cabinet would be unveiled by Wednesday.

Maliki said the candidates for the heads of the five key ministries - interior, defence, oil, finance and foreign affairs - had been finalised.

He said the two key ministries of interior and defence would be headed by independents who had no links with militias.

Meanwhile, five Iraqi Arabs accused of "terrorism" and linked to Al-Qaeda escaped from the coalition-run Fort Sussi prison on Tuesday, said Iraqi police.

- AFP