A coalition of three Sunni Arab parties holding 44 seats warned that it would withdraw from the political process if it did not get at least one key post such as the Defense Ministry.

That threat came several days after Shiite party with 15 lawmakers pulled out of the Cabinet talks because it was not given the Oil Ministry.

The surge in violence came one day before the resumption of Saddam Hussein's trial after a three-week break. The deposed leader and seven co-defendants are on trial for the killings of 148 people from Dujail after a 1982 assassination attempt in the town against Saddam.

The U.S. command said a roadside bomb just after dark Sunday killed two U.S. soldiers in east Baghdad. The military gave no other details on the deaths. At least 2,439 U.S. military personnel have died since the Iraq war began in 2003, according to a count by The Associated Press.

On Monday, suspected insurgents hit a British military camp with a mortar barrage, wounding four soldiers, officials said.

The attack came about 4:30 a.m. at Camp Abu Naji in Amarah, 180 miles southeast of Baghdad, said Calee Gedoll, a British Ministry of Defense spokeswoman in Basra. One of the British soldiers was badly hurt in the leg, but the others' injuries were not as serious, said Holly Wheeler, a ministry spokeswoman in London.

Baghdad's deadliest attack Sunday involved the twin suicide car bombs that exploded near a main checkpoint on a four-lane road leading to Baghdad's international airport. The blasts killed at least 14 Iraqis and wounded six.

Twelve other Iraqis were killed in Baghdad by four roadside bombs, three that targeted Iraqi police patrols and one that exploded in an open market. At least 10 people were killed in the city Saturday.

The attack on the airport road was the most serious in months. Attacks had decreased since last year because of increased security along the six-mile stretch of highway leading from central Baghdad to the airport ¡ª often considered the most dangerous road in the world.

The weekend also saw attacks on a string of small Shiite Muslim shrines east of Baqouba, capital of the religiously mixed Diyala province 35 miles northeast of Baghdad that has been a flash point of sectarian violence.

"These shrines are not only visited by Shiite Muslims, because they are not only Shiite imams but they are imams for all Muslims," Diyala Gov. Raid Rashid al-Mula Jawad said.

He said the shrines, often the size of a room or smaller, had "no protection because they are simple ones that some people use as graveyards."

The attacks were the latest in a surge of sectarian violence that erupted with the Feb. 22 bombing of a revered Shiite shrine in Samarra, an escalation that has worsened security and led to fears of civil war between Sunnis and Shiites.

"Such acts anger God and hurt the feeling of all honest Iraqis," Shiite cleric Adnan al-Rubaie said in Baqouba on Sunday. "The goal is clear ¡ª to ignite civil strife. God's curse on everybody who tries to create sedition in this country."