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KATMANDU, Nepal — The king formally named Girija Prasad Koirala as Nepal’s new prime minister Thursday, although a spokesman said the 84-year-old politician was sick with a lung problem and had been on oxygen throughout the day.

Koirala’s unspecified illness kept him away from a victory rally in Katmandu, marring a day that began with the communist rebels announcing a three-month cease-fire.

The temporary truce lifted a key burden on the new government poised to take control after weeks of bloody protests in which 15 people were killed by soldiers and police. The demonstrations forced King Gyanendra to reinstate Parliament.

Koirala was the choice for prime minister by the alliance of political parties behind the protests — which were backed by the Maoist insurgents — and his illness could keep him from Friday’s first session of the reinstated Parliament.

Spokesman Krishna Sitaula said Koirala — who is taking his fifth turn as prime minister — would be examined by doctors before deciding whether to go to Parliament.

The outlawed student wing of the rebels, meanwhile, announced they would rally in Katmandu on Friday. The All Nepal National Free Student’s Union (Revolutionary) was outlawed by the previous government and declared a terrorist organization. Earlier Monday, the rebels’ elusive leader, Prachanda, said in a statement that his fighters would refrain from any assaults on government targets for three months to give Nepal a chance for peace.

Shiite cleric leader endorses dismantling militias in Iraq

BAGHDAD — The incoming prime minister won the backing Thursday of Iraq’s top Shiite cleric for his plan to disband militias, which the U.S. believes is the key to calming sectarian strife and halting the country’s slide toward civil war. But violence flared across a wide area of Iraq on Thursday, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld departed after two days of talks with Prime Minister-designate Nouri al-Maliki and other Iraqi officials.

In Baghdad, gunmen assassinated the sister of the Sunni vice president a day after he endorsed the use of force to quell Sunni-led insurgents. Elsewhere, three Italian and one Romanian soldiers were killed in a bombing in southern Iraq, insurgents launched attacks northeast of the capital, and a U.S. jet fired missiles at insurgent positions in Ramadi.

The endorsement of al-Maliki’s plan came during a meeting in Najaf with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani. The ayatollah told al-Maliki, a Shiite tapped last weekend to form a government, that security should be his top priority.

"Therefore, weapons must be exclusively in the hands of government forces, and these forces must be built on a proper national basis so that their loyalty is to the country alone, not to political or other sides,” a statement from al-Sistani’s office said.<