Mar. 24, 2006. 04:14 PM


BAGHDAD — Iraq's president issued a highly optimistic report Friday on progress among politicians trying to hammer out the shape of a new unity government. Meanwhile, at least 51 more people, including two U.S. soldiers, were reported dead in rampant violence.

President Jalal Talabani said the government could be in place for parliamentary approval by the end of the month, but acknowledged, "I am usually a very optimistic person." He spoke to reporters after a fifth round of multi-party talks among the country's highly polarized political factions.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad brokered the sessions as the Bush administration is applying extreme pressure on Iraqi politicians to form a government. Washington hopes to begin withdrawing troops this summer, but is banking on a decrease in violence once a national unity government is in place.

A less optimistic Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaari, whose nomination by the Shiite bloc for a second term produced the continuing political stalemate, has said a cabinet list could be ready by the end of April, a full month beyond the Talabani estimate.

The political talks resumed as some among the politicians floated what appeared to be trial balloons suggesting that the Shiite bloc would seek a way out of the impasse over al-Jafaari by naming three candidates for the premiership, officials close to the talks said Thursday.

After Talabani spoke to reporters Friday, fellow Kurdish politician Mahmoud Othman said the high-level talks resumed and took up a 28-point political statement that would outline the program of any new government, once formed.

Another negotiating session was set for Saturday, he said.

Talabani said politicians had agreed Friday to a method for choosing the government.

"All the political blocs agreed upon the mechanism of forming the government, and in the near future there will be a government of national unity," he said without providing details.

Al-Jaafari's nomination has been strongly opposed by Sunni, Kurdish and secular legislators, but in remarks aired Friday on Al-Arabiya television, the prime minister suggested he had no plans to step aside.

'There is no one in the world who wins unanimously except as used to happen during Saddam's era," he said.

The rising death toll among Iraqis on Friday included five worshippers killed in a bombing outside a Sunni Muslim mosque after Friday prayers. At least 15 were wounded in the blast in Khalis, northeast of Baghdad.

Baghdad police on Friday said they discovered 25 more bodies, blindfolded, shot and dumped throughout the capital. Retaliatory killings among Shiite and Sunni Muslims have become increasingly common in the capital since the Feb. 22 bombing of an important Shiite shrine that unleashed the rash of sectarian violence.

The two U.S. soldiers were killed in combat in Iraq's insurgent-ridden Anbar province, the American military reported Friday. The statement said the soldiers, assigned to the 2/28th Brigade Combat Team, were killed on Thursday.

Drive-by gunmen killed three policemen in west Baghdad and three power station workers headed to their jobs in Taji, just north of the capital.

In south Baghdad's Saydiyah district, gunmen killed four employees of a pastry shop. Nearby, a roadside bomb killed a policeman.

In the town of Latifiyah, about 30 kilometres south of Baghdad, gunmen broke into the home of a Shiite family and shot to death three men and a boy. Two women in the same family were wounded.

In the southern predominantly Shiite city of Kut, four people were killed in drive-by shootings, said Hadi al-Atabi who works at the city's morgue.

An Internet statement purportedly posted by the Mujahedeen Shura Council, a militant Sunni Muslim insurgent group, claimed responsibility for a suicide attack Thursday on the Interior Ministry Major Crimes unit in Baghdad that left 10 civilians and 15 policemen dead.

The statement identified the attacker with his nickname, Abu Sayyaf al-Iraqi. The group also claimed responsibility for killing three Iraqi soldiers Friday in Baghdad's southern neighbourhood of Dora. Police did not confirm those killings.