Iraqi leaders forge new alliance sans Sunnis

Iraq's president and prime minister announced a new political alliance between mainstream Shia and Kurdish parties yesterday but, crucially, no Sunni leaders have yet signed up.
"Signing this agreement will help solve many problems in the present crisis and encourage the others to join us," President Jalal Talabani said at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.
Maliki's government has been paralysed by the decision of the main Sunni political bloc to withdraw its ministers from the government during a power sharing dispute with the premier's Shia supporters.
The deal formalised an alliance between Maliki's Dawa Party, Vice President Adel Abdel Mehdi's Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC), Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and Massud Barzani's Kurdish Democratic Party (PDK).
But Sunni Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi and his National Concord Front, the main Sunni faction, boycotted talks that led to the bloc's creation, and the government remains bitterly split on sectarian and ethnic lines.
Leaders of Iraq's divided Shia, Kurdish and Sunni communities have often clashed on security, political and social issues leading to delays in the passage of crucial laws aimed at rebuilding the violence-struck country.
Meanwhile, US troops killed nine militants and detained over the past week nearly three dozen more, including a smuggler accused of bringing arms from Iran into Iraq, the military said yesterday.
During the raid three gunmen were killed while five others were arrested of which four tested "positive for explosives residue."
A car bomb exploded in a popular Baghdad shopping complex on Thursday, killing at least seven people and wounding another 15, security officials said.
The blast, which took place at around 9:00 am (0500 GMT) in the car park of Al-Rusafi shopping complex, sent a thick plume of smoke skywards and shook the window panes of buildings several hundreds metres (yards) from the site.
Firemen scrambled to the scene where a blaze had engulfed the building.
Initial reports indicated that at least seven people were killed and 15 wounded, security officials said.
The Al-Rusafi market is popular with Baghdadis who visit it to buy clothes, dress materials and leather goods.