BAGHDAD — Iraq's Prime Minister-designate Haider Al-Abadi on Monday predicted a "clear vision" on a new government would emerge within the next two days, state television reported, as the country faces deepening sectarian conflict.

 

Abadi is tasked with forming a power-sharing administration that can ease tensions and counter militants posing the biggest security threat to Iraq since the toppling of Saddam Hussein in 2003.

 

He said the latest talks on the structure of the government had been constructive.

 

Shortly after Abadi spoke, a suicide bomb attack in a Shiite mosque in Baghdad on Monday killed at least nine people and wounded 21, police and medical sources said.

 

The attacker detonated his suicide bomb vest inside the mosque in the New Baghdad district of the capital at prayer time, police said.

 

In his comments, Abadi also emphasized that the central government will not tolerate armed groups operating outside government control. "There is no place for armed groups whether from the militias, the tribes or the volunteers," he said. "We will not allow the formation of armed groups out of control of the state." — Reuters