THE WORLD - Political splintering raises stakes for Maliki
BAGHDAD — The government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki suffered another defection Saturday, and Iraqi politicians and disillusioned citizens joined the debate about whether he should be replaced with a more secular leader.
Stepping forward to present himself as the ideal candidate, former Interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi hired a powerhouse Washington lobbying firm to promote him.
The sectarian violence that has helped drive Sunni Arabs and even some of Maliki's fellow Shiites to boycott the Cabinet continued to flare Saturday.
A car bomb exploded in Baghdad's working-class Kadhimiya neighborhood shortly after noon, killing seven people and wounding 30. The blast occurred as Shiite faithful began assembling for an annual pilgrimage to Karbala, 50 miles southwest of Baghdad, the capital. Authorities banned motorcycles, bikes and pushcarts from the streets to deter attacks on pilgrims, expected to number more than a million.
Sunni Arab extremists have used previous festivals to attack Shiite pilgrims. And in August 2005, about 1,000 Shiites died in a stampede on a bridge in Kadhimiya when rumors spread of a suicide bomber in the throng.
In other violence Saturday, at least three civilians were assassinated in Kirkuk, said police, who suspected that Al Qaeda-aligned militants carried out reprisal killings of fellow Sunni Arabs who had turned on the insurgent groups. Later in the day, police said a U.S. missile landed in the city, killing two people and injuring four, including a man whom U.S. forces arrested at the hospital. Kirkuk police said the dead were civilians.
Maliki came in for criticism from President Bush and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker last week. Bush later backed away, calling Maliki "a good person who is facing many problems." But an assessment by U.S. intelligence agencies concluded that Maliki was unable to govern effectively and that the political situation was likely to become more precarious in the near future.
Several prominent members of Congress called for Maliki to step down, or for the U.S. to start withdrawing its troops soon.
Infighting and sectarian power struggles have prompted all Sunni and independent factions to pull out of the so-called national unity government. The bloc led by Allawi ceased attending Cabinet meetings this month and said Saturday that it was formally abandoning its posts.
