BAGHDAD (AP) - Police in the past 24 hours have found the bodies of at least 87 men killed in execution-style shootings in a wave of apparent sectarian killing, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday. They include at least 29 bodies in a mass grave in an eastern Shiite neighbourhood.

Much of the bloodshed - the second wave of mass killings in Iraq since bombers destroyed a key Shiite shrine last month - followed deadly weekend explosions in a teeming Shiite slum in which 58 people died and more than 200 were wounded.

North of the capital, a roadside bomb exploded Tuesday among Shiite pilgrims headed on foot to the holy city Karbala, killing one person and injuring seven near Baqouba, police said.

With sectarian tension mounting, Iraq's Interior Ministry announced a ban on driving in Baghdad to coincide with the first meeting of Iraq's new parliament Thursday. The ban takes effect at 8 p.m. Wednesday and lasts until 4 p.m. Thursday.

Squabbling over the composition of a new government has delayed the inaugural session since the results of Dec. 15 parliamentary elections were confirmed more than a month ago.

Leaders of Iraq's main ethnic and religious blocs began a series of marathon meetings Tuesday in an attempt to break the deadlock. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, who has been shuttling between the main factions, joined the session helmed by Shiite leader Adbul-Aziz al-Hakim.

The stakes are high for the United States, which hopes a strong and inclusive central government can stabilize the country so its forces can start drawing down in the summer.

Most of the discarded corpses were found in the capital and three in the northern city of Mosul, police said.

Acting on an anonymous tip, police found a six-by-eight-metre hole in a empty field. It contained at least 29 dead men - most of them in their underwear - in Kamaliyah, a largely Shiite east-Baghdad suburb, said Interior Ministry official Lt.-Col. Falah al-Mohammedawi. He estimated they were killed about three days ago.

Local residents offered scarves to help cover bodies laid out on the ground. Police guarded the site as members of a Shiite militia dug for more corpses.

An abandoned minibus containing 15 more bodies was found earlier on the main road between two mostly Sunni west-Baghdad neighbourhoods - not far from where another minibus containing 18 bodies was discovered last week, said al-Mohammedawi.

At least 40 more bodies were recovered in Baghdad, including both Sunni and Shiite neighbourhoods, said al-Mohammedawi.

They included four men shot in the head execution-style and hanged from electricity pylons in Sadr City, where two car bombs and four mortar rounds shattered shops and market stalls at nightfall Sunday, as residents shopped for food for their evening meal.

Scores of frightened Shiite families have fled predominantly Sunni parts of Baghdad in recent weeks, some of them at gunpoint. More than 100 families arrived between Monday and Tuesday alone in Wasit province, in the southern Shiite heartland, said Haitham Ajaimi Manie, an official with the provisional migration directorate. More than 300 Baghdad families are now sheltering in the province, he said.

The violence since the Feb. 22 bombing of the famed golden dome atop the Shiite Askariya shrine in Samarra has complicated negotiations for Iraq's first permanent, post-invasion government. A caretaker government has been in charge since the December elections, and U.S. and Iraqi officials fear the vacuum in authority is fuelling the bloodshed.

Under pressure from the U.S. ambassador, leaders of the main ethnic and religious groups agreed Sunday to meet daily until they can unblock the political negotiations.

Among the most contentious issues is Shiite Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari's candidacy for a second term. Kurdish, Sunni and some secular leaders argue he is too divisive a figure and accuse him of doing too little to contain reprisal attacks on Sunni mosques and clerics after the Shiite shrine was destroyed.

The Shiite United Iraqi Alliance is itself divided over al-Jaafari. He won the nomination by just one vote last month in large part because of the support of radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Hakim favoured Adil Abdul-Mahdi, one of two current vice-presidents.

Also present at Tuesday's meeting were President Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, leaders of the main Kurdish parties; Dhafir al-Ani, an official with the main Sunni bloc, and former prime minister Ayad Allawi, a secular Shiite.

Radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr - whose stronghold was targeted Sunday - refused to be provoked. With thousands of his Mahdi Army militiamen ready to fight, the anti-American leader called for calm and national unity.

Sunni religious leaders quickly condemned the assault on Sadr City.

Sheik Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al-Samaraie, head of the Sunni Endowment, the state agency responsible for Sunni mosques and shrines, called it "a cowardly and criminal act."

"There are some hands trying to add fuel to the fire for their own benefit," he said on television.

Britain, the United States' largest military partner in Iraq, showed its confidence Monday by announcing a 10 per cent reduction by May - almost 800 troops.

© The Canadian Press 2006

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