Twelve people, including an Iraqi soldier, were killed in a series of roadside bombings and shootings across the country, where sectarian tensions are running high after the killing of more than 100 Shiites in an explosion of violence since Thursday.

Iraq angrily sought to counter suggestions that it was in the midst of a civil war three years on from the toppling of Saddam's regime on April 9, 2003, barely three weeks after the launch of the US-led invasion.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, whose government was Washington's main ally in the invasion, said he believed Iraq was not in a state of civil war but that there was a "high level of slaughter."

The Shiite-led United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), the 275-member parliament's largest bloc, formed a three-member committee in a bid to end the standoff that has left a power vacuum nearly four months after an election for the first permanent government since Saddam's ouster.

But Kurdish political leaders have rejected Jaafari as premier after a meeting with representatives of his party.

"We have once again rejected Jaafari's candidacy," Kurdish lawmaker Mahmud Othman said.

Shiite MPs Jawad al-Maliki of Jaafari's Dawa party, deputy parliament speaker Hussein al-Shahristani, and Sheikh Hamam Hamoudi of the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), Dawa's rival for power, were named as committee members.

"This committee will talk to the Kurds, the Sunnis and the secularists to get their view on Jaafari and then suggest a final opinion," a source close to the negotiations said.

"If they reach an opinion that goes against Jaafari, then the UIA will meet tomorrow to select a new candidate to replace him."

Sunday's talks were called after Iraq's most prominent Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani wrote to the alliance asking the leaders to prevent the bloc from unraveling, the source said.

Jaafari has faced immense pressure from UIA members as well as Kurdish, Sunni and secular parliament factions to step down.

Kurdish and Sunni figures accuse him of failing to stop the wave of sectarian violence that has left hundreds dead since the bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra on February 22.

Jaafari has refused to go although he has indicated he is ready to put his fate before parliament.

Acting speaker Adnan al-Pachachi said he would convene the assembly soon, and that the date would be fixed in the next few days.

Jaafari, who headed Iraq's one-year transitional government, was narrowly selected on February 12 as the UIA candidate for premier after forging an alliance with firebrand Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr.

The political stalemate coincides with a wave of violence that has killed at least 106 Shiites since Thursday, including a triple suicide bomb outside a Baghdad Shiite mosque and a car bombing in the pilgrimage city of Najaf.

The somber mood stood in sharp contrast to the jubilation on April 9 three years ago when Iraqis marked Saddam's ouster by tearing down his statue in Baghdad with assistance from the US military.

Shiites celebrated Sunday by trampling on a poster of Saddam emblazoned with the words "fall of the tyrant", while Sunnis denounced the continued presence of foreign troops.

Deputy Interior Minister Hussein Ali Kamal on Saturday said Iraq had been caught in an "undeclared civil war for the past 12 months."

"On a daily basis Shia, Sunni, Kurds and Christians are being killed and the only undeclared thing is that a civil war has not been officially announced by the parties involved," he told the BBC.

His view was echoed by Egypt's President Hosni Mubarak in an interview with Dubai-based Al-Arabiya television Saturday.

"There is effectively a civil war underway now," Mubarak said.

"If the Americans left now, it would be a catastrophe because the war will get worse and Iran and others will interfere... and terror will eat up not only Iraq but the entire region."

On Sunday, Iraq hit back at Mubarak, who also enflamed Shiites across the region when he said their loyalties lay first with Iran.

"The comments have upset Iraqi people who come from different religious and ethnic backgrounds and has astonished and dismayed the Iraqi government," Jaafari said.

President Jalal Talabani said the "accusations against our Shiite brothers are baseless and we have asked our foreign minister to talk to Egypt about this."

An internal US government report gave a grim view of the situation. The report rated the stability of six of Iraq's 18 provinces as "serious" and another as "critical," The New York Times reported.

In violence on the ground, US forces killed eight suspected insurgents near Hamaniyah, west of Baghdad, the military said, while rebels killed 12 across Iraq.

The US military announced the death of a marine, bring the US military toll in Iraq since the invasion to 2,350 killed, according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.