Followers of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr also want new elections amid political crisis and fresh violence in Baghdad.
A suicide attack killed five people at the interior ministry in Baghdad as a key political bloc called for early elections in a worsening standoff that has stoked sectarian tensions.
The blast, which left dozens wounded on Monday, came just days after the capital was struck by its deadliest violence in more than four months.
The parliamentary coailtion loyal to anti-US Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr said it backed the dissolution of parliament and early elections in a dispute that has seen Iraq’s Sunni vice president accused of running a death squad and a deputy prime minister call the government a “dictatorship”.
Earlier this week, Joe Biden, the US vice president, urged dialogue between Iraqi politicians to resolve their differences.
In Monday’s attack, a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-packed car into the interior ministry compound when guards opened the main gates to allow electrical maintenance workers through, a ministry official said.
At least five people were killed and 39 wounded, security and health officials said, including at least two policemen killed and 14 wounded.
The blast came after a wave of attacks across Baghdad on Thursday killed 60 people Violence in the provinces the same day claimed another seven lives. It was the deadliest day in Iraq since mid-August.
Sadrist statement
Baha al-Araji, the Sadrist parliamentary chief, said in a statement that his bloc in Iraq’s Council of Representatives wanted to “dissolve parliament and repeat elections”.
An official at the movement’s headquarters in the southern city of Najaf said Araji’s statement “represents all of the bloc, and it represents the opinion of the bloc”.
(Excerpt) Read more at aljazeera.com …
