The Interior Ministry, which controls the police forces, has been promised to the Shiites. Sunni Arabs are to get the defense ministry, overseeing the army. It is hoped the balance will enable al-Maliki to move ahead with a plan for Iraqis to take over all security duties over the next 18 months so U.S.-led troops can begin withdrawing.

Al-Maliki told the British Broadcasting Corp. his government had a better chance of suppressing the violence than his predecessors because it is the nation's first permanent government since Saddam Hussein fell.

"Previous governments were either temporary or transitional. They did not receive full backing from the Iraqi people to deal with this issue," he told the BBC.

In the meantime, U.S. military commanders have moved about 1,500 combat troops from a reserve force in Kuwait into the volatile Anbar province to help authorities establish order in the insurgent hotbed stretching from Baghdad west to Syria.

The military command in Iraq described the new deployment as short-term. The plan is to keep the newest troops in Anbar no longer than four months, said one military official, who requested anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the move.

The military also said a roadside bomb killed a U.S. soldier Tuesday southeast of Baghdad, while small-arms fire killed an American soldier Monday in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

The bodies of two Marines missing after a helicopter crash in western Iraq over the weekend also were recovered.

The AH-1 Cobra helicopter from 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing was on a maintenance test flight when it went down Saturday in Anbar. The military said hostile fire was not suspected as the cause, but the crash was being investigated.

The prime minister's office said suspected terrorist Ahmed Hussein Dabash Samir al-Batawi was captured Monday and confessed to hundreds of beheadings around the country. They released a mugshot of the balding al-Batawi wearing a white T-shirt with a nametag hanging around his neck.

Beheadings are a common tactic used by Islamic extremist groups or sectarian death squads. Al-Qaida in Iraq has claimed responsibility for beheading several foreign hostages, including American Nicholas Berg.

Police also said three unidentified insurgents described as well-known aides of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi were killed last week during clashes in Latifiyah, about 20 miles south of Baghdad.

Elsewhere in Baghdad, a roadside bomb also killed one police officer and wounded four others, and police found the bodies of nine shooting victims. A decapitated body was discovered floating in a river about 35 miles south of the capital.

Police Capt. Laith Mohammed, meanwhile, said a pregnant woman and her cousin were killed in Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad, while driving to a maternity hospital. The U.S. military had no immediate comment.

Separately, the U.S. military freed 204 male detainees from Abu Ghraib and other detention centers after an Iraqi-led panel recommended their releases.

To date, the board has reviewed the cases of more than 39,000 detainees, recommending more than 19,600 individuals for release, the military said.

In other violence, according to police and hospital officials:

- Three people were killed and 10 others were wounded in Ramadi, although the circumstances were unclear.

- A suicide car bomber tried to ram into an Iraqi army checkpoint in a village west of Mosul, but Iraqi soldiers opened fire, killing the driver.

- Masked gunmen killed a real estate broker, a baker and the owner of a convenience store in separate attacks in Baghdad.