Baghdad, Iraq – Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki pledged “maximum force against terrorists” on his first full day on the job Sunday, while bombs targeting mainly Shiite Muslim neighborhoods of Baghdad killed at least 30 people. In all, attacks killed more than 40 people nationwide.
The intensified bombings – the kind of attack most often associated with Sunni Arab insurgents – appeared intended to detract from Saturday’s inauguration of al-Maliki, a Shiite leading Iraq’s first permanent government since the ouster of Saddam Hussein, and the first Iraqi administration since Hussein’s with a significant number of Sunni participants.
Al-Maliki held his first Cabinet meeting Sunday. Security, the overwhelming top demand of Iraqis now, took priority.
“We will use maximum force against the terrorists and killers who are causing the bloodshed,” al-Maliki told reporters after the Cabinet session.
Al-Maliki said he expected to name candidates within two to three days to head the Interior and Defense ministries, which control police and the army. Considered two of the most powerful posts in the Cabinet, they have also been the most contentious, and al-Maliki was unable to fill them before Saturday’s parliament session approving him and the other Cabinet appointees.
Al-Maliki on Sunday reiterated plans to reorganize Iraqi security forces with an emphasis on Baghdad, the scene of most of the political and sectarian carnage that has ravaged the country for nearly three years.
Al-Maliki had been expected to take a hard stand against insurgent violence; the open question for his administration is how tough he will be on Shiite militias, most of which are tied to the Shiite religious parties that make up the political bloc that al-Maliki heads. The militias are behind much of Iraq’s sectarian violence, which U.S. officials say is now the country’s main problem.
On Sunday, however, bombs apparently placed by Sunni insurgents claimed the greatest toll. Attacks included a suicide bomber wearing an explosives-packed vest who killed at least 18 people at lunchtime in a restaurant in Baghdad’s largely Shiite neighborhood of Karrada.
