Baghdad ? A roadside bomb killed a governor in southern Iraq on Monday, the second provincial boss assassinated in nine days and a likely prelude to an even more brutal contest among rival Shiite militias battling for control of some of Iraq’s main oil regions.

Iraqi police blamed the attack on the powerful Mahdi Army, whose fighters are nominally loyal to radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr but have recently splintered as breakaway factions set their own course.

The showdowns in southern Iraq – pitting Mahdi groups against the mainstream Shiite group in parliament – could intensify as the British forces overseeing the south gradually withdraw in the coming months.

Meanwhile, a range of initiatives, both political and diplomatic, reached a near dizzying pace as the Sept. 15 deadline approached for the Bush administration to report to Congress on its Iraq policies.

During the second day of a groundbreaking fact-finding tour, the French foreign minister warned Iraqi officials against complacency in the face of violence.

And Iraq’s prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, sought improved relations and help in the immediate neighborhood at the start of a three-day mission to Syria. Iran said its firebrand president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, would soon pay a first-ever call on the Iraqi leader in Baghdad.