Attacks across the country killed at least 24 Iraqis, including schoolteachers and six members of a single family, while the US military announced the deaths of six servicemen on Sunday, two killed when their helicopter was shot down south of the capital.
Six policemen were killed by Shia tribesmen near the main southern city of Basra after their leader was slain by attackers reportedly wearing police uniforms, adding to the tensions in British-controlled southern Iraq.
The US military also said that it killed more than 40 suspected insurgents in weekend raids south of Baghdad, including an alleged local Al Qaeda leader accused of shooting down a US combat helicopter last month.
Violence has raged across Iraq as political leaders continue to bicker over key ministerial posts in the first permanent government of the post Saddam Hussein era.
Talabani rejected calls for the defense and interior posts to be filled temporarily to end the long-running political deadlock, as Shias, Sunnis and Kurds jostle for power.
"The presidency does not wish to see the presentation of an incomplete government lacking the defense and interior posts," he told reporters.
Prime minister-designate Nuri Al Maliki, a Shia, has until May 21 to announce his cabinet
"There is an agreement that these two ministries should go to independents on which all party lists agree," Talabani said, adding: "God willing, the new national unity government will be announced before the end of the week."
On Sunday, Bahaa Al Aaraji, an MP close to Shia radical leader Moqtada Al Sadr, said that Maliki would keep the interior and defense portfolios in his own hands for the time being.
In an important concession from the Sunni Arab bloc, Sunni Vice-President Tareq Al Hashemi said that defense should go to a Sunni member of the secular party of Shia former interim prime minister Ayad Allawi, whose members include both sects.
"The interior ministry should go to a Shia but he should be approved by all the other lists," Hashemi said. "The defense ministry should go to Allawi's list and should be approved by everybody."
Among those killed in attacks on Monday were six people from the same family, including four women, gunned down in their home by armed men in the northern city of Mosul, security sources said.
Four schoolteachers were slain near Baladruz east of Baghdad when gunmen opened fire on their minibus and two civilians were killed when a makeshift bomb exploded in the path of their car on the road between Baiji and Tikrit.
Six policemen were also killed near Basra in southern Iraq when Shia men from the Garamsha tribe went on the rampage over the killing of their leader by men in police uniforms, police said.
Basra has seen a rise in violence and tensions as relations between British troops in the region and local authorities have deteriorated and on Monday four British soldiers suffered minor injuries when a mortar bomb hit their base in Amara.
Another five Iraqis were killed in other attacks in various parts of the country, while the bodies of two people shot dead were found south of Baghdad.
The US death toll also mounted on Sunday, with six servicemen killed.
Two US soldiers were killed when their helicopter was shot down during fighting over Yusifiyah, in the so-called Triangle of Death south of Baghdad.
Two US marines were also killed in the restive western province of Anbar, and two US soldiers were killed by a bomb in Baghdad.
The latest fatalities brought the number of American military personnel killed to 2,438 since the March 2003 US-led invasion, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.
Meanwhile, the US military said that it had killed 16 suspected insurgents including a local Al Qaeda chief and arrested eight in raids on Latifiyah, south of Baghdad.
Abu Mustafa was wanted over an April crash of an Apache helicopter in which two US servicemen were killed.
"Abu Mustafa was also a known weapons smuggler who allegedly facilitated the movement of missiles and rockets within the Al Qaeda terrorist network," the military said.
In a separate attack on an insurgent "safe haven" in Latifiyah, US forces said that they killed another 25 insurgents.
The Iraqi defense ministry said that it killed two insurgents and arrested 42 in Latifiyah, while another 23 were arrested in the restive city of Ramadi west of the capital.
A joint US-Iraqi force also killed four insurgents in raids near Tal Afar, near the Syrian border, where 165 suspects were arrested, the ministry said, adding that another 12 were arrested in three other operations.
© 2006 Agence France-Presse
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