Bomb Rips Through Baghdad Market

At Least 36 Killed As Iraq Teeters On The Brink Of Civil War

(CBS/AP) 
Adnan Al-Dulaimi had sped away in another car in the motorcade and said he was not aware of the attack until he reached his office. Security men who stayed with the disabled car were caught in the subsequent attack that killed one and wounded five. "There is a big conspiracy that wants to destroy Iraq," Adnan al-Dulaimi told Al-Jazeera television.

The explosion during the busy morning shopping period at a vegetable market in Baghdad's southeastern Zafaraniyah neighborhood killed at least eight people and wounded 14, said police Lt. Bilal Ali Majid. Police evacuated the market after finding a second bomb.

Earlier, gunmen attacked a joint police-army checkpoint about 20 miles north of Samarra, killing six soldiers and four policemen, police said. The attackers set fire to the bodies before fleeing the area, he said.

Four more policemen were killed when gunmen intercepted they vehicle in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, said police Brig. Abdel Hamid al-Jbouri. And police found the bodies of five men shot in and around Baghdad.

As sectarian killing surged last week, the U.S. 2nd Brigade, 1st Armored Division was put on alert in neighboring Kuwait for a possible move into Iraq, the military said. But no orders were given for such a move.

The violence has complicated talks to form a broad-based government, which U.S. officials consider essential to cut support for insurgents among the Sunni-Arab minority so coalition forces can start drawing down later this year.

Al-Jaafari's office gave no reason for calling off Thursday's meeting with major political parties.

"The cancellation of this meeting is a regrettable thing because such meetings are essential under the current situation," said Mahmoud Othman, a leading figure in Parliament's Kurdish bloc.

On Wednesday, leaders of three parties, including Sunnis, Kurds and the secularists of ex-Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, agreed to ask the main Shiite bloc to withdraw al-Jaafari's nomination for prime minister and put forward another candidate. Officials of all three groups confirmed the plan but spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject.

The Shiites won 130 of Parliament's 275 seats in December elections, giving them the largest bloc of lawmakers and the first chance to form a government, but not enough to govern without partners.

Al-Jaafari won the nomination by a single vote in a Feb. 12 ballot among Shiite lawmakers, defeating Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi in large part due to the support of anti-U.S. cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.

"The plan for those terrorist groups to instigate a civil war is not successful and it won't be successful," said Iraq's Minister of Public Works, Nisreen Berwari, in an interview with CBS News Up to the Minute contributor Frank Ucciardo. "At the end of the day, there is no major division of differences between Iraqi groups."