Baghdad, Iraq – At least 17 people were killed in insurgent attacks Sunday, as talks on a unity government among Iraq’s political factions remained deadlocked less than a week before the new parliament’s first meeting.
In northern Baghdad, the owner of an ice-cream shop was shot dead outside his shop Sunday morning, an Interior Ministry official said. A police officer, an Iraqi army soldier and a paramilitary officer were killed in separate shootings, the official said.
Also in Baghdad, a car bomb killed two people and wounded five near a Shiite political office in the Jadiriyah district, The Associated Press reported. One of the dead and three of the wounded were police officers.
North of the capital in Taji, gunmen killed four truck drivers after ambushing a convoy carrying construction materials to an American military base, officials said. South of Baghdad in Salman Pak, two men who had been kidnapped days earlier were found dead, the police said.
In Kirkuk, the deputy police chief and two bodyguards were killed by a roadside bomb, the police said. In Baqubah, north of Baghdad, a police official said four people, all Shiites, were gunned down in a public market.
Also on Sunday, American officials confirmed the crash in northern Iraq of a private plane carrying five German businessmen and an Iraqi.
Sectarian violence has magnified the challenges facing Iraq’s major political factions, which are struggling to agree on the principles of a unity government.
The Kurds and the secular alliance led by Ayad Allawi, a former prime minister, are pushing for the creation of a supervisory council with executive powers. But the Shiite alliance, which has 130 of parliament’s 275 seats, says there is no basis for such a council in the constitution.
There has also been friction over the issue of Kirkuk, where Kurdish leaders want to expedite the return of Kurds expelled by Saddam Hussein.
Under the constitution, parliament must meet for the first time by Saturday, 15 days after the final results of the December elections were certified. At that meeting, the representatives must choose a speaker and deputy speakers.
But political leaders say the choice of a speaker is tied to decisions on all the other major posts, including president and the prime minister’s Cabinet. Meeting the deadline is unlikely at this point, with various factions bogged down in disagreements.