Baghdad: Three months after a landmark election, Iraq's new Parliament convened for the first time on Thursday amid worsening communal violence and little sign of a deal on a government of national unity.
Streets in the capitvehicle traffic barred to keep car bombers at bayal were eerily quiet with , while police and army units multiplied their checkpoints across the city.
The government told civil servants to take a holiday and many other residents bunkered down at home, fearing attacks by insurgents bent on proving the caretaker government cannot guarantee security. Most shops remained closed.
The 275 members of Parliament, elected on December 15, were to be sworn in a televised ceremony behind blast walls and razor wire in Baghdad's fortified Green Zone.
Outgoing president Jalal Talabani and interim Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari attended the session, which began with recitations from the holy Koran.
Troops guarded the perimeter of the Green Zone, which is home to the government, the court trying deposed dictator Saddam Hussein and the US and British embassies.
The new Parliament, the first elected to a full four-year term since the ouster of Saddam in 2003, will again be dominated by the Shiite United Iraqi Alliance which can count on the support of 130 MPs.
The Kurdish coalition has 53 seats, while various Sunni parties control at least 55 seats. Secular-based and minority parties hold the remaining seats.
All factions, egged on by US authorities, have called for setting up a government of national unity, but have so far failed to agree on who should lead the next cabinet.
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