Sunni snubs key cabinet post

However, the Sunni selected as the human rights minister immediately turned down the post, saying he could not accept a position awarded on sectarian criteria.

Hashim Abdul-Rahman al-Shibli said he had not been consulted about the ministerial job, which would have taken the total number of Sunnis in the cabinet to seven.

"Concentrating on sectarian identities leads to divisions in the society and state, and for that reason I respectfully decline the post," he said.

His statement underscored the ethnic and religious divisions that have hampered the Iraqi government since landmark parliamentary elections on 30 January.

Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the prime minister, has sought to curtail support for his country’s deadly insurgency by drawing into his Shiite-dominated government members of the Sunni minority who dominated under Saddam Hussein. But bickering over cabinet positions has persisted, with Shiite leaders rejecting numerous candidates submitted by Sunni negotiators because of their ties to Saddam’s regime.

Since Mr al-Jaafari unveiled the bulk of his new government on 28 April - seven cabinet posts were then unfilled - nearly 300 people have been killed in a surge of militant attacks.

Gunmen yesterday shot and killed Zoba Yass, a senior official in the transportation ministry, police said. His driver was also shot dead during the attack in southern Baghdad.

Mr Yass, the director general of the ministry’s projects, was being driven through the Dora area of the capital on his way to work when his car came under fire. Police and officials from the transportation and interior ministries said it was not clear whether the insurgents had been in a vehicle or on foot, but that they had escaped from the scene.

Elsewhere, coalition forces killed six insurgents and detained 54 suspects in raids targeting the terrorist group al-Qaeda in Iraq yesterday. The United States military said the raids took place in Qaim, near the Syrian border.

Coalition forces said they had been acting on information they received from Mohammad Amin Husayn al-Rawi, identified as a key associate of Iraq’s most wanted militant, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Al-Rawi was captured on 26 April.

Soldiers captured a further 55 suspected insurgents in raids on Saturday in Baghdad and the area around Mashru, about 50 miles south of the capital, the US military said. Those detained included an unidentified senior military officer in Saddam’s government.

Amid the continuing bloodshed, Mr al-Jaafari’s government has less than eight months left to complete its main tasks: draft a new constitution by mid-August and submit it to a referendum no later than 15 October. If approved, new elections must be held by 15 December, under Iraq’s transitional law.

The prime minister pledged to take "all necessary measures" to restore security and said the government could impose martial law, if necessary.

The new nominees approved for the 37-member cabinet included a Sunni former military man as defence minister, while a Shiite who served as oil minister in the first US-picked provisional cabinet was returned to that key post.

The defence ministry went to Saadoun al-Duleimi, a former lieutenant-colonel in Saddam’s notorious general security directorate who left Iraq in 1984 and lived in exile in Saudi Arabia until Saddam’s fall in April 2003. A moderate, he comes from a powerful Sunni tribe in Anbar province, the homeland of the insurgency.

The oil ministry was returned to Ibrahim al-Uloum, a Shiite who was accused of inexperience when he first held the post in the former US-appointed governing council.

The other nominees were Mihsin Shlash, a Shiite, as electricity minister; Osama al-Nujaifi, a Sunni, as industry minister; and Abed Mutlak al-Jiburi, a Sunni, as a deputy prime minister.

President Jalal Talabani and his two vice-presidents signed off on all the names before they were submitted to the 275-member national assembly for a vote. Of the 155 legislators present, only 112 voted in favour of the choices.

Mr al-Jaafari said that the months of negotiations had been necessary to ensure the government has broad support. "The need to represent all sectors of Iraq was the reason for the delay," he said. "Time was not spent in vain."

The new government, most of which was sworn in last week, includes 17 Shiite ministers, eight Kurds, six Sunnis and a Christian. Three deputy prime ministers also have been named - one each for the Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

A fourth deputy premiership remains vacant; Mr al-Jaafari has said he hopes to appoint a woman to that position.