BAGHDAD, June 16 (UPI) -- A militia of more than 400 men, set up in the Iraqi Interior Ministry, has ties to assassinations of government officials, the prime minister said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said there was a militia set up in the government that was answerable to an unnamed outsider, the McClatchy news service reports.
Maliki was quoted as saying a series of investigations and confessions suggested assassinations in the country were carried out using government weapons, vehicles and identification cards.
The allegations announced on state television come amid heightened political infighting in Baghdad. Maliki is still without new names for key ministries like defense more than a year after parliamentary elections.
"What happened of late is a clear reflection of the confusion in the political process," he said of the latest violence in his country.
Maliki won a second term in office after securing a parliamentary majority early this year. Rival party Iraqiya, a Sunni-backed slate led by former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, won last year's vote but was unable to secure the support needed to form a new government unilaterally.
U.S. officials had said they expect Baghdad to ask some U.S. troops to stay in the country behind a mandated Dec. 31 departure date spelled out in a 2008 status of forces agreement.
