Iraq car bomb hits interior ministry

At least six people have been killed in a suicide car bomb attack on Iraq's interior ministry, the latest since a crisis erupted between the country's Shia-led government and Sunni leaders a week ago.

The prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, a Shia, ordered the arrest of the vice-president, a Sunni, last Monday and asked parliament to fire his deputy, a move that threatens a new wave of sectarian strife just after the withdrawal of the last US troops.

The blast occurred when the bomber drove his vehicle into a security cordon outside the interior ministry in central Baghdad, detonating an explosion that left dead and wounded on the ground and set fire to nearby vehicles, police said.

The attack on Bab al-Sharji Street followed Thursday's wave of explosions in mainly Shia areas across the Iraqi capital, in which at least 72 people were killed.

"When I went outside I found my colleagues, some of them were killed, others were on the ground, many cars were burned, the policeman on the watchtower looked like he was killed when he was hit in the head," said Zaid Raheem, a police guard.

Six people, including four policemen, were killed and 34 others were wounded, police and hospital sources said.

A senior police source said authorities believed insurgents were targeting the ministry because of the announcement of the arrest warrant for the vice-president, Tariq al-Hashimi.

Hashimi has left Baghdad for semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan, where he is unlikely to be handed over to central government officials immediately.

The crisis threatens to scuttle an uneasy power-sharing government that splits posts among the Shia National Alliance coalition, the mostly Sunni-backed Iraqiya bloc and the Kurdish political movement.

Iraq's Sunni minority have felt marginalised since the rise of the Shia majority after the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Sunni dictator Saddam Hussein, and many Sunnis feel the political deal has pushed them aside.

Turmoil in Iraq would have a wider impact in a region where a crisis in neighbouring Syria is taking on a more sectarian tone and Shia Iran, Turkey and Sunni Arab Gulf states are jockeying for influence.

US officials, diplomats and Iraqi politicians have been in talks to end the dispute that threatens to push Iraq back into the kind of sectarian violence that took it to the edge of civil war a few years ago.

The US vice-president, Joe Biden, spoke with Maliki and Masoud Barzani of the Iraqi Kurdistan regional government about the spat, urging dialogue among leaders, and expressing condolences over violence in Baghdad.

Biden played a diplomatic role during the US military's departure from Iraq, travelling to the country and discussing signs of rising sectarian tension with Iraqi leaders.

US forces withdrew fully from Iraq after almost nine years on 18

its so sad that a country will all its wealth all they do is kill each other instead of tryig to get along with each other but you are dealing with the middle east where this is normal for them

These people have been killing each other for a 1000 years. Yes it is sad, but what's new under the sun. Until they realize they cannot mix religion with politics, it will never work. AJ