Iraqi minister resigns

2005-05-08 17:20

Baghdad - Iraq's new cabinet was barely in place on Sunday before one of the newly-appointed ministers quit, the latest in a string of mishaps that has hobbled Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari's government of "national unity".

The final line-up was approved by parliament against a backdrop of renewed violence as insurgents gunned down a senior civil servant in Baghdad and a suicide bomber killed at least two Iraqi soldiers after ploughing his car into their convoy in central Iraq.

The attacks followed a massive explosion in Baghdad on Saturday that killed at least 18 people, including two American security guards, and brought the death toll nationwide to at least 250 over the past eight days.

Just hours after parliament approved the final slate of six cabinet ministers put forward by Jaafari after months of bitter haggling between Shiites, Kurds and Sunnis, newly-named human rights minister Hashem Ashibli resigned.

"I was surprised when I heard in the media that I had been appointed as human rights minister to represent the Sunni community," Ashibli told a press conference, saying he objected to what he described as a cabinet chosen on sectarian lines.

It was not immediately known who would replace him.

Ashibli was one of nine Sunnis appointed to the 36-member cabinet in a bid to broaden its appeal and compensate for the community's under-representation in parliament following a very low Sunni turnout in the January 30 elections.

Four of the six nominees approved on Sunday were Sunnis, a minority community dominant under ousted dictator Saddam Hussein and which is believed to provide the backbone to the ongoing insurgency.

In a bid to bring the community on board in the country's first democratically elected government in half a century, Jaafari appointed a Sunni, Saadun al-Dulaimi, to head the key defence ministry.

Another all important portfolio, the oil ministry, went to Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, son of a prominent Shiite cleric, who previously held the post in the interim administration appointed by US-led forces in September 2003.

The government line-up is dominated by the Shiites, who seized more than half of parliament seats in the January 30 elections and have 18 cabinet posts.

Others named Sunday were the industry and electricity ministers, along with a Sunni deputy premier.

The embattled prime minister, who has spent more time since his partial cabinet was sworn in on May 3 sorting out competing demands for key jobs than fighting the insurgency, vowed to "resort to all legal means, including emergency laws if necessary, to combat violence".

Meanwhile, the US military announced the arrest of more than 100 suspected insurgents, including 54 allegedly linked to Al-Qaeda frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's network, in a series of weekend raids.

In other raids, US forces arrested 33 suspects in Baghdad on Saturday, including a high-ranking military officer in Saddam's regime, and another 17 people in a sweep near Al-Mashru, to the south of the capital.

Violence continued in Baghdad where gunmen shot dead a senior civil servant from the transport ministry and his driver as they were leaving for work, an interior ministry official said.

And two Iraqi soldiers were killed and four Iraqis wounded, including a child, when a suicide bomber drove his car at a joint Iraqi-US patrol on a highway near Baiji in central Iraq, police said.

Some of the wounded were civilians travelling in cars following the army convoy, according to police lieutenant Hassan Salah.

It was not immediately known if there were any American casualties.

Meanwhile, concern rose over the fate of an Australian and three Romanian hostages held by Islamic militants in Iraq.

Australian foreign minister Alexander Downer reiterated that his government would not give in to hostage-takers' demands for a withdrawal of the country's forces as new images released by Islamic militants holding Douglas Wood showed him shaven-headed and with black eyes.

The abductors on Friday set a 72-hour deadline for Canberra to announce it was withdrawing its troops.

Romania's foreign minister Razvan Ungureanu said Bucharest would not change its policy on Iraq because of the kidnapping of the three Romanian journalists in March.

The kidnappers had initially set a deadline of April 27 for Romania to announce the withdrawal of its 860 troops from Iraq to save the journalists' lives, before announcing a reprieve. They have not been heard from since.

- AFP