Kuwait Times

Published Date: July 26, 2010

BAGHDAD: Iraq's new parliament will meet tomorrow for just the second time since a March 7 parliamentary election that produced no clear winner, a representative of a political bloc said yesterday. But the decision to schedule a new session, made at a meeting of the political factions, did not signal a deal between squabbling coalitions on the formation of a new government, said Salim al-Jubouri, an official with the Tawafuq bloc.

The new session was intended to pick a new parliamentary speaker and two deputies, a necessary step in the process of forming a new government. "In the absence of a political accord between the blocs in parliament ... the solution is to vote (for a new speaker and deputies)," Jubouri said. "The representatives of the blocs agreed to hold the session tomorrow at 10 o'clock," he said.

Iraq's Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish factions have been jockeying for position in the new government since an inconclusive parliamentary election four months ago that Iraqis had hoped would bring stable government after years of war. US troops are due to pull out by the end of next year. The negotiations have snagged on the issue of who would hold the prime minister's office. Shi'ite incumbent Nuri al-Maliki, whose State of Law bloc placed second in the election, wants another term.

Former prime minister Iyad Allawi, whose cross-sectarian Iraqiya coalition won two seats more than Maliki's on March 7, also wants the premiership. State of Law and Iraqiya objected to calling a new session of parliament for Tuesday and were likely to be absent, meaning there would not be enough members present for a quorum, several lawmakers said.

Together the two blocs hold 180 of parliament's 325 seats. The new parliament met for the first time on June 14 in a session that lasted barely 20 minutes. The session was left open and lawmakers have not reconvened since. Meanwhile, authorities have arrested three suspected senior leaders of Al-Qaeda's front group in Iraq, including its self-styled minister of defence, a spokesman said yesterday.

Also among the group detained were two brothers suspected of masterminding major attacks in the central Iraqi province of Diyala, defence ministry spokesman Major General Mohammed al-Askari told AFP. "Iraqi soldiers arrested Saleem Khalid al-Zawbayi, the minister of defence for the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI)," Askari said.

He was arrested on Wednesday evening south of Baghdad," he added. Zawbayi is suspected of organising a July 18 suicide bombing in the town of Radwaniyah, west of Baghdad, targeting anti-Qaeda militiamen being paid their wages. Forty-five people were killed and 46 wounded.

Askari also said that two brothers-Jaabar and Qadoori Radhi Khamis al-Zaidi-believed to have been responsible for operations in Diyala, were arrested in the northern city of Tikrit, where they were based. The two were ISI "emirs", according to Askari.

The arrests came as Iraqi security forces pressed a manhunt for four suspected Al-Qaeda members who escaped from a jail on the outskirts of Baghdad last week. The four who escaped from the Cropper detention facility were the ISI's suspected ministers of justice and finance, along with a "judge" and another suspected Al-Qaeda member, a police source said.

Their disappearance has been a major embarrassment for the Iraqi government, which only a week ago took over the Cropper facility from the US military. "We are working with the Iraqi ministry of justice to do an investigation to determine how this exactly could have happened," Lieutenant General Robert Cone, the deputy commanding general for US forces in Iraq, said on Friday. "It certainly is disturbing." - Agencies