BAGHDAD — Iraq's main Sunni Arab political bloc withdrew from the government Wednesday, blaming Shiite Muslim leaders for not addressing sectarian issues, as explosions in the streets killed at least 70 people around Baghdad.
Six Cabinet members with the Iraqi Accordance Front, Tawafiq in Arabic, had suspended participation in the government in June and threatened last week to pull out permanently. The Sunni bloc took the action after its demands that Sunni detainees be released and that Shiite militias be addressed were not met.
The pullout reduces Iraq's Shiite-dominated government to little more than caretaker status. Barring a major political realignment, it also makes it less likely that Prime Minister Nouri Maliki's regime will be able to reach significant compromises on legislative benchmarks sought by the Bush administration to help quell sectarian strife.
Tawafiq member Tariq Hashimi retains his post as one of Iraq's vice presidents.
The bloc's pullout cast the gravest challenge yet to Maliki's tenure as prime minister. His government has been burdened for months by talk of conspiracies, most prominently featuring former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi.
Scenarios included tapping Maliki's immediate predecessor, Ibrahim Jafari, also with the Shiite fundamentalist Islamic Dawa Party. Jafari recently traveled to Iraqi Kurdistan in an apparent attempt to curry favor there.
A Kurdish official told The Times last month that Jafari was now preferable to Maliki, despite the fact that Jafari had been vetoed for a second term last year after failing to win the backing of any of the main sectarian or ethnic blocs.
The prospect of Iraq's other vice president, Shiite Adel Abdul Mehdi, being tapped for Maliki's job also has surfaced. At least one plan for an alternative government to Maliki's has been submitted to the U.S. Embassy by Iraqi political leaders.
"The bottom line is the country is on the brink right now," a Sunni official in the government told The Times on condition of anonymity.
The pullout marked an end to the rocky cohabitation that began more than a year ago with the unveiling of the U.S.-brokered national unity government of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds. After a flurry of early activity, including a reconciliation plan announced in the government's second month, Maliki's Cabinet lost momentum.
