As Iraq continued to flounder without a new government four months after landmark elections, lawmakers criticized party leaders for failing them amid the spiraling violence.

An Iraqi boy gestures toward a banner of Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, in Baghdad. As Iraq continued to flounder without a new government four months after landmark elections, lawmakers criticized party leaders for failing them amid the spiraling violence. [AP]

At least 12 people, including three Iraqi soldiers, were killed in a series of bombings and shootings across Iraq Saturday.

The spike in violence comes with the country's political leaders having failed to put together a cabinet after holding elections for the first permanent post- Saddam Hussein parliament on December 15.

"US and Iraqi leaders have failed the Iraqis," Mahmud Othman, a Kurdish MP, told AFP.

"Today we enter the fifth month since the holding of the elections and we still do not have a government. In fact we have not even started the process of forming the government by at least having a prime minister," Othman said.

"This shows that all of us as leaders and the US authorities have failed in Iraq."

The political crisis has largely been aggravated in recent weeks by Ibrahim Jaafari's refusal to step down as the next premier -- despite opposition from Kurdish and Sunni lawmakers, as well as his own Shiite alliance.

In fact, the Shiite alliance's inability to solve the Jaafari crisis has also displeased the office of Iraq's revered cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Sistani aide Ahmed al-Safi blamed the alliance for the precarious security situation.

"There is a crisis of trust among the lists which won the parliament seats," he told Iraq's Al-Sharqiya television, referring to the alliance.

For his part, Jaafari has remained defiant, claiming he has a responsibility to Iraqis to continue as the premier.

"I was the legitimate and democratic choice," Jaafari told Britain's Channel 4 television Friday.

"I wouldn't have accepted the responsibility if I thought it was against the will of the people. I don't see how I could repay my people's faith in me by letting them down."

The anti-Jaafari lobby finds the premier incapable of handling the sectarian tensions shaking the country.

In a bid to expedite the political process ahead of Iraq's second parliament session scheduled for Monday, the heads of Iraq's parliamentary blocs agreed Friday to form a commission to decide who should fill the various cabinet posts ahead of the meeting.

"They agreed to hold continuous meetings until they reach a final agreement before the next parliamentary session, emphasizing the need to achieve a balance between the actual results of the elections and the need to create a government of national unity," a statement from the president's office said.

The Shiite alliance met earlier Saturday to try to break the impasse on the prime minister, said Shiite MP Reda Jawad al-Taqqi.

Political sources said the alliance met late Saturday again and indications were that it could solve the deadlock in the next 48 hours. There are even rumors of a new surprise candidate as the next premier.

In violence Saturday, three Iraqi soldiers were killed as their convoy was hit by a roadside bomb in Baghdad's dangerous southern Al-Dura neighborhood, while another eight soldiers were wounded.

Four civilians were also killed in a car bomb blast targeting a police patrol in eastern Baghdad. The blast wounded 28 others, including three policemen.

The US military late Saturday announced the death of a third marine after it earlier reported that two marines had died and 22 others were wounded in a major rebel attack on Thursday in western Iraq taking the total death toll since the beginning of the month to about 35.

The US military death toll in Iraq since the 2003 invasion has reached 2,369, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

As the security forces took the brunt of rebel attacks, widespread sectarian violence between the country's Shiite and Sunni communities have left hundreds dead across the country since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra in February.

About 200 people, mostly Shiites, have died in the last 10 days in bombings and shootings, believed to be carried out by extremists linked to terror group Al-Qaeda.

Iraqi Interior Minister Bayan Jabr Solagh told AFP that his ministry was unable to control all the security related issues in Baghdad, saying "how will I be able to solve the security problems when the ministry controls only one-third of Baghdad?".

"The defense ministry controls another one-third of Baghdad and the remaining is between the hands of the multinational forces," he said denying Sunni allegations that his ministry was indulging in unlawful killings of Sunni Arabs in the ongoing sectarian clashes.

Meanwhile, in the southern holy city of Najaf thousands of Iraqis demonstrated in support of Jaafari and against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's remarks that Shiites were more loyal to Iran than their own country.