There is no hope for an end to the violence in Iraq without "a competent government" in the country despite the killing of Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Los Angeles Times editorial said on Friday.

"Without Zarqawi, as even President Bush noted in the Rose Garden, the insurgency and attacks in Iraq will continue," said the editorial.

The killing of Zarqawi "may not have been the most important news from Iraq on Thursday," said the editorial. "That designation may fall to the appointment of three new security ministers, giving Iraq a complete government for the first time since elections last December."

Iraq's leaders are now in a better position to "capitalize on the development than they were in December 2003" and this was far more important than the killing of Zarqawi, noted the editorial.

"There can be little argument that the death of Zarqawi, who was killed when an Air Force jet dropped two bombs on his house about 30 miles north of Baghdad, is the best military news from Iraq since the capture of Saddam Hussein 2 1/2 years ago," it said.

Because Zarqawi was a foreign interloper, his passing will hardly be mourned by ordinary Iraqis - quite the contrary. By the same token, however, his removal doesn't materially alter tensions between native Sunni and Shiite factions," the editorial stressed.

Zarqawi's death may be symbolistically significant, the appointments of the Iraqi ministers "are likely to have a more lasting political effect", said the editorial.

Just a few minutes after his joint news conference with U.S. leaders announcing Zarqawi's death, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki presented to parliament his choices for interior minister, defense minister and national security advisor - a Shiite, a Sunni and an ethnic Kurd, respectively. He thus broke a logjam that had lasted almost three weeks and threatened to render his government impotent.

But on the same day, several bombs killed dozens of people and wounded scores more in Baghdad. In response to Zarqawi's death, Al Qaeda in Iraq issued a statement saying it "only makes us more determined to continue the jihad."

"So Iraq's civil war appears no closer to an end because of Zarqawi's death. But Iraq is closer to a viable government because of Maliki's appointments. And its only hope for peace is for that government to be effective and accepted as representative of all of Iraq," noted the editorial.

Source: Xinhua