In the latest atrocity in Baquba, north of Baghdad, nine severed heads were found on Tuesday, police said, as Iraqi leaders faced a crisis over filling two security jobs critical to ending rampant bloodshed.New Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki was due to hold a news conference in the afternoon but it was unclear whether he would make any announcement on the two important security posts—the ministers of Defence and Interior.In the second gruesome discovery in recent days, police in Baquba said nine heads were discovered in cardboard crates in the city’s northern al-Hadid district.Baquba is the main city of Diyala province, a religiously mixed area that has seen frequent guerrilla attacks aimed at toppling the US-backed, Shi’ite-led government and other sectarian violence.The formation of Maliki’s government of national unity on May 20 raised hopes both in Iraq and abroad that it would be able to defuse relentless killings. But the factions within the government have so far failed to agree on the new Interior and Defence ministers, left vacant when Maliki took office due to intense wrangling.Sources said Maliki’s rivals in his Shi’ite Alliance had objected to his choice for interior minister, a job that also heads the police. Officials in the Alliance question whether his government can survive the pressure of internal rivalries and the incessant killing. —Fredrik Dahl & Mariam Karouny
