Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki once again failed to reach agreement Sunday on naming a new defense and interior minister as parliament reconvened after a four-day break.

Two Iraqi police officers, watched by an Iraqi soldier, far left, run for cover as a second roadside bomb explodes shortly after a first targeting a police and army patrol in Tahariyat square in central Baghdad, Iraq Sunday, May, 28, 2006. [AP]

Naming strong but neutral ministers is considered crucial for any plan to restore security and stability to strife-torn Iraq.

Rampant violence claimed three lives and injured 21 people just after dawn when a pair of bombs ripped through central Baghdad. The bombs, designed to kill the maximum number of people, were planted next to each other and were detonated in succession in Baghdad's Tahariyat Square, police 1st Lt. Thaeir Mahmoud said. Many of the injured were gawkers who had rushed to the scene of the fist explosion.

The head of the provincial council in Diyala, a mixed but tense province north of Baghdad, escaped an assassination attempt that killed one of his bodyguards and injured six others. Ibrahim Bajlan was uninjured when a car bomb detonated next to his convoy in the Imam Weis area, 44 miles north of the provincial capital Baqouba.

The fresh violence came amid rising fears in the Iraqi capital that extremists seeking to force Baghdad residents to follow strict Islamic practices were now targeting men in shorts, liquor stores and even barbers. Gunmen in recent months have even killed people drinking beer along the banks of the Tigris river.

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