27 Iraqis, 3 U.S. soldiers killed

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Insurgents killed three American soldiers in the Baghdad area Sunday and fired mortars near the Defense Ministry in a spree of violence that killed at least 27 Iraqis as politicians began work on forming a new government.

The largest Sunni Arab party raised new allegations of sectarian killings — one of the most urgent issues facing the new leadership.

U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad said the next government must decommission sectarian militias and integrate them into the national armed forces, warning that the armed groups represent the "infrastructure for civil war."

Sunday's deaths raised to eight the number of U.S. troops killed in the past two days.

At least 61 American service members have died in April, putting it on track to pass January — with 62 — as the deadliest month this year. It represents a jump over March, which with 31 deaths was the lowest monthly toll for the Americans since February 2004.

The three soldiers were killed Sunday when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb northwest of capital, the U.S. command said.

Twenty-seven Iraqis also died in other violence Sunday, including seven killed when three mortars hit just outside the heavily guarded Green Zone in Baghdad, not far from Iraq's Defense Ministry. Police Lt. Maitham Abdul-Razzaq said it was hard to identify the seven dead because the powerful blasts and shrapnel severed their limbs and destroyed their identification cards.

At least eight other mortars or rockets exploded at about the same time on the other side of the Tigris River in central Baghdad, without causing injuries, police said.

In the evening, another mortar hit a home in southern Baghdad, killing a man and wounding two of his relatives. Drive-by shootings in a nearby district gunned down a schoolteacher outside her home and a car mechanic in his shop.

The violence underlined the challenge as prime minister-designate Jawad al-Maliki began on Sunday the tough task of assembling a Cabinet out of Iraq's Shiite, Sunni and Kurdish parties.

President Bush called al-Maliki, the Iraqi president and the parliament speaker — all named on Saturday — and urged the quick formation of a coalition government.