The Hindu : International : Jaafari sworn in amid violence

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, May 04, 2005

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International

Jaafari sworn in amid violence

Atul Aneja

MANAMA: Iraqi Shia leader Ibrahim Jaafari has been sworn in as the Prime Minister, heading a partial Cabinet line-up, that reflects bickering over the allocation of key portfolios.

The Cabinet list shows that a decision on the appointment of a Defence Minister and an Oil Minister has been postponed.

There were indications earlier that the Defence Ministry would go to a Sunni. The Sunni community — the second largest in the country was poised to receive seven Cabinet births, including the post of a deputy prime minister and a defence minister.

After acrimonious negotiations that lasted for months, Mr. Jaafari has cobbled together a Cabinet that includes 15 Shia Ministers, seven Kurds, four Sunnis and one Christian. Mr. Jaafari will hold the Defence portfolio till a full-fledged Minister is appointed. Ahmed Chalabi, a Shia politician, who was at one time a Pentagon favourite, will temporarily take charge of the key Oil Ministry.

Pilot's body found

AFP reports:

The U.S. military also reported that it had found the body of a pilot who went missing when contact was lost with two U.S. jets overnight.

NBC News, citing U.S. Navy officials, said earlier that the jets had been involved in a mid-air collision. Much of Iraq was engulfed in a fierce sandstorm late Monday and overnight.

Searches continued for the other pilot.

The military also announced the death of a soldier in a bomb attack near Baghdad airport on Monday, as the death toll from a week of bloodshed continued to mount.

The U.S. military also announced on Tuesday that it had killed 12 militants with links to Al-Qaeda's Iraq frontman, Jordanian Islamic militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, near the Syrian border.

Mr. Zarqawi is the most wanted man in Iraq and the U.S. military claimed it had seized a letter addressed to him warning of low morale among rank-and-file militants.

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