As they headed back from the funeral of a tribal sheikh on Saturday, the governor and chief of police of the southern Iraqi province of Qadisiya were killed by a roadside bomb. Hundred of mourners set out from the Shia Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council (SIIC) officers to bury the two bodies yesterday.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered an investigation into their killings, which he called “a seditious act”. Iraq’s president further stoked the flames of division by saying the attack was a “cowardly terrorist act” by Sunnis fighters who had been displaced by the current security crackdown.

Residents of Diwaniya, the provincial capital, said they now fear an all-out war between different Shia factions in the region. SIIC controls the police which are fighting Shia cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s al-Madhi militia.

Also on Sunday, al-Maliki said a much-anticipated summit to try to end political deadlock among the country’s leader could begin in the next two days.

The politicians at the meeting are expected to include al-Maliki; Talabani; Tareq al-Hashemi, the Sunni Arab vice-president; Massoud Barzani the Kurdish regional leader; and Abul Aziz al-Hakim, the SIIC leader.

Al-Maliki, whose national unity government has been in crisis since the main Sunni Arab bloc pulled out, said he would either lure it back or find other Sunni Arabs to replace it.

He said: “The first meeting may happen tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.”

Nearly half of the cabinet is no longer participating in its meetings.

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