More than 25 Iraqis were killed in violence across the country Thursday amid last-minute political dealings on key security portfolios ahead of this weekend's expected unveiling of a new cabinet.
Four US soldiers and an interpreter were also killed when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb northwest of the capital, the US military said.
In the deadliest attacks, a car bomb in a busy commercial street in the capital's central Waziriyah neighborhood killed at least seven people and set security vehicles ablaze.
And seven people from the same family died in a drive-by shooting of a minibus, part of a wave of violence that has underscored the need for a permanent government and strong leadership in the defense and interior ministries.
Although prime minister-designate Nuri al-Maliki said Wednesday he would submit his cabinet line-up for approval by parliament on Saturday, political groups have shown continuing discord.
New names for the coveted security ministries were being floated just four days ahead of a constitutional deadline for the cabinet's formation.
"Nominations for the candidacies are going to be up for discussion until the very end," the Al-Sabah Al-Jadid independent daily newspaper predicted.
Sources close to Maliki said that two ex-generals - Sunni Baraa Najeeb al-Rubaie and Shiite Nasser Daham Fahad al-Amri - have been added to a list of five other candidates for the defense and interior ministries.
Rubaie, in the running for the defense post, fled Iraq in 1991 and joined Iyad Allawi's anti-Saddam organization composed largely of former military men.
Amri, a possible candidate for the interior ministry, is from the Shiite Al-Bu Amr tribe, which has good relations with Sunni tribes north of Baghdad. He is a cousin of former parliament speaker Thari al-Fayadh.
Independent Shiites Ahmed Chalabi, Washington's former protege, and Qassem Daoud, an ex-national security minister, are two other candidates for the interior ministry, Shiite deputy Hassan al-Sunaid said.
The names of Sunnis Hashem al-Hasni, the former parliament speaker, former industry minister Osama al-Najafi, and the current defense minister, Saadun al-Dulaimi, have also been voiced as potential heads at defense, the MP said.
In a press conference Thursday, the president and his vice president declined to speculate on the issues of government formation but instead focused on tensions in Iraq's second city of Basra.
"The tensions within city council have created insecurity and a loss of control, resulting in deaths and displacement which has to be placed under control," said Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi.
Abdel Mahdi attributed the tensions to economic reasons as well as "foreign factors".
In other violence, four policemen were killed in clashes in Fallujah said Dr Mohammed Ismail of the the western town's hospital. Clashes erupted after insurgents fired mortars at the US-protected seat of local government.
In Ramadi, the hospital reported two dead in clashes between insurgents and US forces that have flared on and off for the past week.
In the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk, gunmen in a car shot dead a local leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Nejmeddin Abdullah, as he left his party headquarters.
In the same city, four men murdered a teacher and a student from technical school in a drive-by shooting.
The corpse of a Kurdish woman working for a labor union and missing for two weeks was found, and Iraqi army employee Abed Said Jabbar was kidnapped.
Two men were shot dead in an industrial area near Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, and gunmen blew up a shrine to a local saint - an increasingly common occurence in the tense, mixed Sunni-Shia area.
Churches urge 'resistance' to Israeli settlements