Bombs kill 24 in Iraq ahead of vote on govt

BAGHDAD: Bombs killed 24 people in Iraq on Saturday, including 19 in a Shi'ite district of Baghdad, hours before Iraq's Parliament was to inaugurate a national unity government aimed at halting a slide toward civil war.

Police said 58 were wounded in the blast targeting Shi'ite labourers in eastern Sadr City slum. It was typical of bombings by Sunni Islamists like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's Al-Aaeda in Iraq.

Witnesses and police said the bomb appeared to have been planted in a spot where the attackers knew large crowds of men would gather shortly after dawn, hoping to be hired for a day's casual labour. Such spots have been targeted in the past.

In the town of Qaim, near the Syrian border, a suicide bomber detonated his explosive-packed vest inside a police station killing five policemen and wounding 10, police said.   

Parliament had been due to sit at 11 am (0700 GMT) to approve a government that may hold full sovereign powers for the four-year term of the legislature, but last-minute negotiations delayed the session.

A new government should end months of inertia amid mounting sectarian bloodshed and talk of impending civil war.

Launching a crucial new phase in the US-backed project to install democracy, Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki struck a basic deal on Friday that left the key posts of interior and defence minister vacant, aides and top negotiators said.

There may be some fine-tuning at the last minute but, with jobs for nearly all parliamentary groups the assembly's approval for Maliki''s ministers is likely to be a formality.