BAGHDAD, Iraq, May 1 - Insurgents using car bombs struck a Kurdish funeral near Mosul and American soldiers handing out candy to children in Baghdad on Sunday in the worst of a spate of attacks that killed at least 35 Iraqis and wounded 80. It was an ever grimmer backdrop to efforts by Iraq's first Shiite-majority government to fill gaps in the new cabinet from the restive Sunni minority.
The attacks extended a surge in insurgent mayhem since the government was formed Thursday and capped the bloodiest three-day period of violence in two months. More than 100 Iraqis have been killed and 200 wounded since Friday, as insurgents try to undermine and intimidate the new government.
Leaders of the dominant Shiite political alliance pressed efforts to complete the new cabinet ahead of a swearing-in ceremony now set for as early as Tuesday. But a government without the prominent role the Shiite leaders have promised for Sunnis would be an embarrassing start for the Shiites, who have said they intend to lead a national unity government that broadly reflects the proportions of Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds in the Iraqi population of more than 25 million.
As of Sunday, the Shiite political leaders were insisting that no Sunnis with Baathist pasts be given positions of power, a policy that is a clear break with Ayad Allawi, the departing prime minister. Dr. Allawi, himself a former Baathist, had won American backing for a policy of filling jobs in the military and intelligence services with experienced people, even if they had some links to the deposed government of Saddam Hussein.
Ahmad Chalabi, a deputy prime minister in the new government, said in an interview that he was confident the cabinet would be completed without further disruptions to a process that has consumed more than three months since the Jan. 30 elections.
But with the Shiite majority apparently adamant about keeping even reformed former Baathists out of key positions, major questions have arisen as to whether the government will be handicapped in its attempts to split the insurgency, as American officials have urged, by drawing more moderate elements from the Baathist past into the political process.
Shiite leaders have said they will proceed with the swearing-in of the government this week even without agreements that place Sunnis in the vacant ministries. They have named interim appointees to two key posts - Ibrahim Jaafari, the prime minister-designate, as acting defense minister, and Mr. Chalabi as acting oil minister.
Finding Sunnis willing to serve in the cabinet, and with at least some credibility in a Sunni population that feels dispossessed after dominating Iraqi politics for generations, has also proved hard to reconcile with the Shiite leaders' insistence that the new government has to represent a clear break with the past - especially with the brutal repression of Shiites under Mr. Hussein.
Even if Sunni ministers acceptable to the main Shiite leaders are named ahead of the new ministry's taking office, many Iraqi politicians believe the Shiites could end up with a government with little or no influence among Sunnis, who registered their alienation from the American-led political process with a vestigial turnout in the January elections.
Some positive news emerged Sunday for American and Iraqi forces: the arrests of at least three men thought to be involved in the disappearance of Margaret Hassan, the British-Iraqi head of Iraq operations for CARE International. Her kidnapping and slaying last year symbolized the indiscriminate violence that has convulsed Iraq since the American-led invasion toppled Mr. Hussein two years ago.
An Iraqi Interior Ministry official said some of the men arrested had already confessed to abducting and killing Ms. Hassan, whose identification and other belongings were found in the home of the suspects. But the first secretary of the British Embassy in Baghdad, Martin Cronin, said in an interview Sunday evening that he was unaware of any confessions.
Hours after the capture of Ms. Hassan's suspected abductors, insurgents released a video showing that they had kidnapped a 63-year-old Australian resident of California who identified himself as Douglas Wood, who worked with the Iraqi military.
Among American officials, who had hoped for a strong, fast start from the Jaafari government, the uncertainties over the government lineup have compounded anxieties about coming months, when the new government is supposed to lead in the drafting of a new constitution and preparations for elections in December for a full five-year government.
People close to Dr. Allawi, the head of what has been a caretaker administration since the January elections, and to Kurdish leaders whose support for Dr. Jaafari cleared the way for his nomination as prime minister, have made no secret of their lack of confidence in Dr. Jaafari. They have expressed doubts in the commitment by the Shiite religious parties to set aside their earlier commitments to remold Iraq into a strict Islamic state.
Ominously for the Jaafari government, the secular Shiites who find their leader in Dr. Allawi, and at least some of the Kurdish leaders, are hoping that the 12-party Shiite alliance that won the elections will splinter under the pressure of office sometime before the December elections, clearing the way for a political realignment in which the religious parties are pushed aside in favor of a centrist, secular bloc that could resume reconciliation with former Baathists, and a gradual winding-down of the war.
Four Sunni Arabs have been appointed to the cabinet so far, but the most important post allotted to the Sunnis, minister of defense, has not been filled. Four candidates are being discussed for that position, said Mr. Chalabi, a favorite of the Bush administration before a falling out last year, who has emerged as a leading figure in the Shiite alliance. "We're getting closer," he said, "but no deal is done unless it's done."
The insurgents' deadliest attack on Sunday struck a funeral in Tal Afar, a restive town about halfway between the northern city of Mosul and the Syrian border. The victims were attending the funeral of a relative of a Kurdish member of the Ninewah Provincial Council when a car bomb ripped through the procession, killing 25 Iraqis and wounding 50 others, the American military said.
Insurgent gunmen killed five Iraqi police officers at the Nahrawan checkpoint in southeast Baghdad at 6 a.m., an Interior Ministry official said.
Another car bomb struck children playing next to an American military convoy in the Zafaraniya district of southern Baghdad at 11 a.m., killing 3 children and wounding 22 others, according to an official at Al Kindi Hospital.
The wounded included the three sons of a neighborhood resident, Karemah Lazem Muhammad. "I heard a huge explosion," Mrs. Muhammad. "I went out to see what happened and saw a plume of smoke rising in the sky. I rushed to see that my three kids were wounded. Now what can I do with three disabled kids?"
Her sons lay in a room at the Kindi Hospital Sunday afternoon. Haidar Qasem, 11, had just had one foot amputated; what remained of his lower leg was wrapped in six-inch-thick white bandages. Lying on a gray blanket, he wore a gray T-shirt with "USA" stenciled in large red letters.
The youngest son, Ali, 5, lay nearby, his head wrapped in a bloody bandage as his mother, wearing a black abaya, sobbed and wiped her face.
Facebook
Twitter