BAGHDAD (AFX) - At least 20 people were killed in a string of attacks in Iraq on Sunday, including bombings against a market and a minibus, as talks on the shape of the new government remained deadlocked over the post of prime minister.
A pre-dawn raid by the US military on a suspected Al-Qaeda hideout southwest of Baghdad also left five alleged insurgents and a woman dead.
The violence flared as Iraq's Sunni Arab and Kurdish leaders warned that the long-running dispute over the fate of Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari was unlikely to be resolved before parliament convenes on Monday.
Iraqi leaders have failed to agree on the Shiite nomination of Jaafari to remain premier, four months after a landmark election to choose the country's first permanent post-Saddam Hussein government.
The country has been engulfed in sectarian violence that has left hundreds dead since the bombing of a major Shiite shrine in Samarra in February.
In the deadliest attack Sunday, car bombing near a market in the town of Mahmudiyah, 30 kilometers south of Baghdad left 10 dead and 25 wounded, an interior ministry official said.
Earlier, a bomb blast in a minibus in a Baghdad neighbourhood killed four people, and another six people were killed in other attacks across the country.
Leaders of Sunni and Kurdish parliamentary blocs said negotiations over Jaafari's candidacy were unlikely to find a solution before the assembly meets Monday for only the second time since the landmark Dec 15 election.
'It will be difficult,' said Zhafer al-Ani, spokesman of the Sunni-led National Concord Front, which has 44 seats in the 275-member parliament.
'We are not optimistic about a decision today before the parliament opens tomorrow as negotiations are very difficult.'
Prominent Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman said leaders of all political parties would meet Sunday and were even likely to consider whether to attend parliament on Monday.
'I do not think they will be able to reach an agreement, especially on all the candidates for key parliamentary posts,' Othman told AFP.
The Sunnis and Kurds are opposed to Jaafari staying on as premier, accusing him of failing to curb the sectarian violence. And Sunnis fear the Shiites -- in a tit-for-tat political move -- may oppose their candidates for other key posts.
Ani said the Front had finalised candidates for three posts. Top Sunni leader Adnan al-Dulaimi was nominated as vice president, Tareq al-Hashemi parliament speaker and Khalaf al-Alyan deputy prime minister.
'We will consult today with other groups on these candidates and I hope they (the Shiite alliance) will not have reservations on our names due to our objections to Jaafari,' Ani told AFP.
'They should consider national interests and rise above their own party interests.'
Othman said Kurdish groups had not yet finalised candidates for the posts of deputy parliamentary speaker and deputy prime minister but insisted that 'Jalal Talabani will be the candidate for the president.'
However, Shiite MP Sheikh Khalid al-Atiya said the dominant United Iraqi Alliance had not yet received any names of candidates from any of the other political groups.
'No one has officially told us any names,' he told state television Al-Iraqiya, adding: 'We hope to reach an agreement today and then go to parliament.'
On Saturday, a British soldier was the latest casualty suffered by US-led forces in Iraq. He died of injuries sustained in a roadside bomb attack in southern Iraq where Britain's 8,000 troops are based.
The latest fatality death takes the number of British troops killed in Iraq since the March 2003 US-led invasion to 104, including 79 killed in action.
US forces have also come under heavy attack in the last two weeks, losing about 35 troops since April 1, marking one of their bloodiest periods since the invasion.
The US military death toll in Iraq since the invasion has reached 2,369, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.
On Sunday the US military said its forces killed five suspected insurgents and detained five others in a raid on a house southwest of Baghdad in a hunt for an alleged Al-Qaeda operative.
One woman died and three women and a child were also injured in the pre-dawn operation in Yusifiyah. newsdesk@afxnews.com afp/ak COPYRIGHT Copyright AFX News Limited 2005. All rights reserved. The copying, republication or redistribution of AFX News Content, including by framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of AFX News. AFX News and AFX Financial News Logo are registered trademarks of AFX News Limited