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Bombs and shootings claim 44 lives in Iraq
This came as as the new PM assured people that he would soon name candidates for Iraq's key security portfolios.
Violence killed 44 people in Iraq on Tuesday as the new Prime Minister again assured people he would soon name candidates for the country's key security portfolios.
Twenty-two Iraqis were killed and 58 wounded when a car bomb exploded in a crowded popular market place at sunset in Husseiniya, just northeast of the capital.
As police and rescue workers swarmed through the area, a second bomb was discovered and defused.
Only an hour earlier, 12 people were killed and 32 wounded when a car bomb, ripped through a used car lot in Hillah, the capital of Babel province, south of the capital.
The blasts came as Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki told BBC he would fill his government's contentious security posts by the end of the week.
Maliki also said he had a better chance of tackling the daily carnage in Iraq than his predecessors because he was head of the country's first full-term administration since the US-led invasion.
"We took a long time because it is an important task that means a lot to Iraq, Iraqis and to the political process," Maliki said, as 10 days after the rest of the government was formed.
