Iraqi PM escapes assassination

Iraq's caretaker prime minister Iyad Allawi escaped an assassination attempt last night when a suicide bomber in a car attacked his convoy near his home, killing one policeman and wounding four, a government spokesman said.

Mr Allawi was in an important meeting on forming Iraq's government and then headed to his house near his party headquarters when the suicide bomber struck, said the spokesman Thaier al-Naqib. Mr Allawi was unhurt.

Iraq may finally get a new government today, its President said, offering an end to nearly three months of stalemate since a historic election.

But the shooting of 19 Iraqi soldiers at a soccer stadium and President Jalal Talabani's account of 50 bodies being hauled from a river near Baghdad showed that violence persists despite a relative lull perceived after the January 30 vote.

At a news conference after meetings with senior Iraqi leaders, Mr Talabani said he hoped Iraq's new Cabinet would be finalised by today.

He also said 50 bodies, believed to be those of Shi'ite hostages seized in a town near Baghdad on Saturday, had been found in the Tigris River south of the capital.

In other violence, rebels shot dead 19 National Guardsmen in a soccer stadium in Haditha, about 200 kilometres northwest of Baghdad, after they took them prisoner, witnesses said.

Three car bombings in Baghdad killed at least two Iraqi civilians and wounded eight. And two car bombs struck the entrance of a US and National Guard base in Ramadi, a hotbed of resistance about 100 kilometres west of Baghdad.

A new democratically elected government could ease Iraqis' widespread frustration about the weeks of horse-trading even as rebel violence has revived.

"We want to announce it (the new government) as soon as possible," Mr Talabani told reporters after meeting Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, leader of Shi'ite Muslim party SCIRI.

"We are hoping it will happen tomorrow afternoon," he said.