Baghdad

Prime Minister Ebrahim al-Jaafari pledged to unite Iraq and fight terrorism as Iraq’s first democratically elected government was sworn in on Tuesday amid escalating violence. ”You all know the heavy legacy inherited by this government. We are afflicted by corruption, lack of services, unemployment and mass graves,” Al-Jaafari said.

A string of coordinated bomb attacks killed at least 10 Iraqis and wounded 30 on Friday in Baghdad, as insurgents showed no sign of letting up after an agreement was reached on a partial Cabinet line-up. At least four of the blasts that rocked the capital at around 8am were car bombs aimed at Iraqi security forces.

At least nine people were killed and 26 wounded when a car bomb exploded outside a crowded Shi’ite mosque in Baghdad during Friday prayers, interior ministry and hospital sources said. A police official had earlier said five were killed and 25 hurt in the attack at Al-Subeih mosque, in the south-east of the capital.

The two-month political deadlock over the make-up of Iraq’s new leadership ended with the election of the Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani as president on Wednesday. More than nine weeks after the January 30 elections, the Iraqi Parliament voted in Talabani — a veteran of the Kurds’ Saddam-era struggles for independence — and paved the way for a new government in Baghdad.

It boasts alliteration but the concept seems fanciful: beautiful Baghdad. Iraq’s capital is famous for violence, degradation, occupation and blackouts, not aesthetic appeal. Everywhere there are concrete blast barriers, sandbags and razor wire. Rubbish lines streets which are sometimes ankle-deep in sewage.

Iraq’s first elected government in half a century finally took shape on Thursday when a former rebel leader took oath as its first Kurdish president and immediately named a top religious Shi’ite as his prime minister. Jalal Talabani, who becomes the first Kurdish head of state in an Arab country, appointed Ibrahim Jaafari as Prime Minister.

Iraq’s new Parliament has chosen former Kurdish rebel fighter Jalal Talabani as the country’s first freely elected President in history. Shi’ite Islamist Adel Abdel Mahdi and outgoing Sunni president Ghazi al-Yawar were named as his two deputies. Iraqi MPs predicted that a government should now be in place by next week.

At least 46 people died in violence in Iraq on the second anniversary of the United States-led invasion of the country as a diplomatic row erupted between Baghdad and Amman. Iraq was plunged into diplomatic crisis with Jordan, with both countries recalling their envoys following accusations of a Jordanian being involved in a suicide bombing.

Two suicide car bombs exploded on Thursday morning outside the main entrance to Iraq’s interior ministry, killing five policemen and wounding five others, security officials and an eyewitness said. The two car bombs blew up at 7.30am (4.30am GMT), with the first vehicle apparently serving as a decoy for the second and more powerful blast outside the interior ministry headquarters.

Ibrahim Jaafari, leader of the Dawa religious party that has links to Iran, was on Tuesday poised to become Iraq’s next prime minister after winning the support of Shi’ite leaders. The news came as Australia pledged another 450 troops to help stabilise Iraq after January elections that saw the rise to power of the long-oppressed Shi’ite majority.

Iraqi leaders on Tuesday stepped up efforts to persuade Sunni Muslims to return into the political process as the final vote count from the country’s historic election got under way. Iraq reopened its frontiers and Baghdad airport as it eased a security clampdown imposed for the first free election in the country in more than 50 years.

More than 30 United States soldiers were reportedly killed in a helicopter crash on Wednesday, in the biggest single loss of life of American life in Iraq since the 2003 invasion, just four days before the country’s landmark elections. Meanwhile, more insurgents acted on threats to escalate violence ahead of the vote.

A car bomb exploded outside a Shi’ite mosque in southwest Baghdad on Friday, killing at least 14 people and wounding 40, hospital sources said. The bomb exploded outside the al-Taf mosque in the Baya area of the capital as worshippers were marking Eid al-Adha, one of Islam’s most important festivals.

A series of suicide car bomb attacks rocked Baghdad on Wednesday killing up to 26 people. At least four separate bombs went off within 90 minutes of each other in a coordinated strike. The United States military said 26 people were killed, although Iraqi officials put the toll lower at around 12 dead.

Ten people were killed in a string of suicide car bombings in Baghdad on Wednesday that targeted the Australian embassy and Iraqi security forces. The attacks anoccurred on the eve of a major Muslim holiday, Eid al-Adha, with Iraqi insurgents determined to taint the January 30 polls with bloodshed.

Deadly attacks against Iraq’s Shi’ite Muslims have multiplied ahead of elections that the majority community is expected to win, as United States Secretary of State Colin Powell warned that an unrepresentative vote could ultimately ”embolden” insurgents. Warnings have intensified that the country risks sliding into civil war.

A car bomb exploded outside a police academy south of Baghdad on Wednesday during a graduation ceremony, killing at least 20 people, a police official said. The bomb exploded outside a gate of the academy in Hillah, about 95km south of Baghdad, said police Captain Hady Hatef.

Insurgents have exposed the vulnerability of Iraq’s security forces again, killing at least 22 national guardsmen and their driver in a suicide bombing and 10 other people in separate attacks by the end of the weekend. On Monday, a suicide car bomber killed a further three people and wounding 25, officials and witnesses said.