Iraqis near decision on new prime minister
Kurdish official says Shiite bloc close to settling on candidate
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BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraqi political leaders are likely to select a new prime minister this week as officials jockey for position in the transitional government.
A decision is expected in two or three days, said Haider al-Musawi, a spokesman for Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress -- one of the political parties in the victorious United Iraqi Alliance.
The alliance won nearly half the votes in last month's election for the National Assembly.
Among those vying to become prime minister are interim Finance Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi and Dawa Party leader Ibrahim al-Jaafari.
Al-Jaafari is the preferred candidate of two top parties in the alliance, said Barham Salih, Iraq's interim deputy prime minister and the top Kurdish official in the interim government.
Salih said that the Dawa Party and Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq have agreed that al-Jaafari is their favorite but that the predominantly Shiite Muslim bloc has yet to sign off on the candidate.
Al-Jaafari is a deputy president of the interim government and a former member of the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council.
If al-Jaafari becomes the alliance's formal candidate, the Kurdish bloc plans to consider the nomination carefully, Salih said.
Dawa Party members are confident that al-Jaafari will be put up for the prime minister's post, according to a Western diplomat who has spoken with some of them.
Al-Jaafari aide Adnan al-Obeidi also said the Dawa Party leader is emerging as the strongest contender.
Members of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq said no agreement has been struck.
Backed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's most powerful Shiite cleric, the United Iraqi Alliance won a plurality in the January 30 election.
Of the 8.46 million votes cast, the alliance received 4.08 million, the combined Kurdish parties won 2.17 million and interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi's Iraqi List got 1.17 million. The Sunni Arab voter turnout was low.
The deadline for filing complaints about the election ends Wednesday.
If all complaints submitted are resolved as expected, the Independent Electoral Commission of Iraq on Thursday officially will announce the certified results and allocation of seats to the 275-member National Assembly, said Fareed Ayar, a commission spokesman.
Other developments
The Turkish Embassy in Baghdad said Tuesday that a businessman kidnapped in December in Iraq has been released. Kahraman Sadikoglu -- owner of a company contracted to remove sunken ships from an Iraqi port -- appeared on a kidnappers' videotape at Christmas. Listeners could hear a voice telling Sadikoglu to order his company out of the country.A civilian bystander was killed Tuesday in Diyala province when an improvised explosive device blew up near a convoy carrying the provincial deputy governor and a U.S. military escort. No one in the convoy was hurt, a U.S. military representative said.A roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier and wounded three while they were on patrol Monday near Baquba, Diyala's provincial capital. The U.S. death toll in the Iraq war stands at 1,460 fatalities.Iraqi officials said Tuesday that security forces have seized two brothers who are former Iraqi intelligence service agents with a direct link to the former air force intelligence director, Gen. Hamid aI-Tikriti, a cousin of Saddam Hussein's. Captured in January, Sabah Nouri Milhim and Riyah Nouri Milhim are suspected of financing, supplying and training terrorists and providing weapons to insurgents in Falluja, west of Baghdad. They also are alleged to be behind attacks on security forces in the Iraqi captial. CNN's Arwa Damon, Ingrid Formanek, Guy Henshilwood, Ayman Mohyeldin, Faris Qasira, Nic Robertson and Auday Sadik contributed to this report.
