Iraq's new parliament delayed its next session for five weeks Monday, extending the country's political paralysis in the face of a Sunni Islamist insurgency which claimed the life of an army general on the northwestern outskirts of Baghdad.

Saudi Arabia reported three shells hit the Arar area inside the country along its border with Iraq, where jihadist-led militants have gone on the offensive.

The Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS), an Al-Qaeda offshoot, and a patchwork of Sunni insurgents are holding territory they seized in northern and western Iraq, the majority of it taken last month.

Maliki said last week that he hoped to overcome the challenges blocking the formation of a new government after the new parliament's first session ended without agreement on the top posts of prime minister, president and parliament speaker.

Most Sunnis and Kurds walked out of the last parliament, saying they believed the prime minister and president should be chosen along with the speaker as a package, not one at a time.

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