Three US soldiers among 11 killed in Iraq: Shia in-fighting delays government

Shia in-fighting over who should head Iraq's vital oil ministry is delaying efforts by the prime minister-designate to form a unity government aimed at averting a slide towards civil war, officials said on Thursday.
Though Nuri al-Maliki has 10 more days to form a broad-based coalition Washington hopes will foster stability and allow it to start withdrawing troops, wrangling has thwarted the no-nonsense Shia Islamist's plans to announce a cabinet by this week.
Political sources involved in marathon talks said there was stiff internal competition in the ruling Shia Alliance over the powerful oil job and that Shias, Sunni Arabs and Kurds were locked in disputes on the interior and defence portfolios.
Three US soldiers were killed in two separate incidents on Thursday when their vehicles were hit by roadside bombs in a rural area south-west of Baghdad.
Four street cleaners were killed when a roadside bomb went off in western Baghdad.
In oil-rich Kirkuk, gunmen ambushed and killed a police lieutenant colonel, and south of Baghdad police found the body of a policeman with his hands bound, signs of torture and shot in the head. In the north, two Iraqi soldiers were killed and four wounded when a roadside bomb went off near an army patrol.