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BAGHDAD — A prominent Shiite member of parliament on Saturday urged interim Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari to withdraw his nomination to head the new government in Iraq, marking the first time that a politician from al-Jaafari's political alliance has made such a call.

Qassim Dawoud, who leads an independent bloc of Shiite parliament members inside the United Iraqi Alliance, joined several Kurdish, Sunni and secular politicians who for weeks have been saying that al-Jaafari is too divisive a figure to lead the fractured country through this crucial period.

Dawoud said in a telephone interview Saturday that he and other members of the alliance first approached al-Jaafari about three weeks ago and asked him to consider stepping aside.

Around that time, al-Jaafari had missed the deadline for nominating members for the Cabinet.

Dawoud said he and others came to the conclusion that al-Jaafari was someone that the minority parties would never be willing to negotiate with and would subsequently bog down the government.

The call for al-Jaafari's pullout came on another bloody day in Iraq that left at least 22 people dead in a series of attacks in Baghdad and Basra, news services reported.

The U.S. military also reported that a coalition helicopter that was engaged in combat operations crashed in southwest Baghdad around sundown Saturday. The fate of the crew was unknown, the military said.