Three Sunni Leaders Slain In Iraq

[David]

AP


Gunmen seized three members of Iraq's largest Sunni Muslim party Friday and shot them dead hours later in front of a mosque, an official of the party and witnesses said.

The three were kidnapped early Friday in the city's southern neighborhood of New Mosul, said Nouredine al-Hayali of the Iraqi Islamic Party. They were later shot dead in the Mosul's northern neighborhood of Nour.

Witnesses said masked gunmen blocked a major road in front of Dhi al-Nourein Mosque, then brought the three out of cars. They forced them to stand against a wall, sprayed them with gunfire and fled. The bodies were left behind.

The Iraqi Islamic Party has been urging Sunni Muslims in recent weeks to register to vote in an October referendum on the new constitution and to take part in general elections planned for Dec. 15. Many Sunni Muslims boycotted the Jan. 30 elections following threats by insurgents and calls by clerics not to do so.

Meanwhile, groups of Shiites and those opposing the constitution are organizing large rallies across Iraq, putting a different kind of pressure on Sunnis.

Insurgents have threatened people against voting in the two planned elections.

In other developments:


A roadside bomb north of Baghdad killed four American soldiers, the U.S. military said Thursday. The military said the roadside bomb blast occurred in the tense, religiously mixed city of Samarra, 60 miles north of Baghdad. No further details were immediately available.


Another roadside bomb detonated near a U.S. military convoy in the capital on Friday, but caused no U.S. casualties. One civilian was hurt, a U.S. spokeswoman said.


Also in Baghdad, a police officer was killed in a late-night raid on suspected insurgents on Thursday in the Washash district in the north of the city, a spokesman said.


In the northern city of Hawija, insurgents assassinated a city council member Friday, police said. They said the councilman, Aswad Omar Nayef, on his way to Kirkuk, 180 miles north of Baghdad when he was ambushed by gunmen. Insurgents have killed in the past dozens of government and local officials.


On Thursday, masked gunmen burst into the Sunni grand mosque in the tense city of Ramadi as religious, political, and tribal leaders met to discuss possible Sunni participation in the constitutional process. The gunmen asked participants to end their meeting and then opened fire on them, said Omar Seri, secretary of the governor of Anbar province. Three members of the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars and a bodyguard were injured, Seri said.


Britain reiterated Friday that it had ruled out setting a timetable for withdrawing troops from Iraq, saying British troops will stay as long as they are needed. Defense Secretary John Reid wrote in Friday's edition of The Times newspaper that Britain would only pull out once Iraqi security forces are able to defend the population.


Negotiators sought Friday to reach agreement on the draft of Iraq's new constitution by next week's deadline, as Sunni Arabs and followers of a radical Shiite cleric joined forces to mount protests against the charter's proposed federal structure.

With Sunni Arab negotiators still holding out against federalism and some other Shiite and Kurdish proposals, pressure of a different kind was mounting on Sunnis who support the constitutional process.

On Friday, more than 1,000 people rallied in Baqouba, northeast of Baghdad, to protest the proposed constitution. The demonstrators chanted slogans against the proposed division of Iraq and called for a centralized form of government.

In Baghdad, anti-federal protests were held in several districts.

In mostly Shiite Sadr City, about 1,000 people demonstrated waving Iraqi and Shiite flags and chanting "No to separation, yes to unity."

"We reject federalism under occupation. Federalism does not represent our people's aspirations," said Abdelzahra al-Sueidi, an aide to radical cleric Shiite Muqtada al-Sadr.

In Kazimiyah ? another Shiite bastion ? hundreds of al-Sadr supporters turned out at a protest, flying national flags and holding up banners reading "We want a united and stable Iraq."

"After all, we are one united people whether we are Sunnis or Shiites, Kurds or Arabs," Hazim al-A'araji, another al-Sadr aide, told the congregation in a Kazimiyah mosque during Friday prayers.

The biggest Shiite political party ? the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, supports creation of a federal region in the Shiite-dominated areas of central and southern Iraq, including major oil fields.

But two other Shiite parties, Dawa of Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari and al-Sadr's movement, do not support the plan.

U.S. officials are anxious for the Iraqis to agree on a draft constitution by the new deadline of Monday night, after they failed to strike a deal by the original Aug. 15 date.

The United States believes a constitution would be a major step in the political transformation of Iraq and would help in time lure disaffected Sunni Arabs away from the Sunni-dominated insurgency. If parliament signs off on the draft, it will go to the voters for ratification in a referendum Oct. 15.

But passions are running so high that a charter might sharpen sectarian and ethnic differences here, complicating moves toward political compromise. Talks were underway Friday in the heavily guarded Green Zone of central Baghdad. If the factions do not agree by the new deadline, parliament must dissolve.

In Thursday's constitutional deliberations, Sunni Arab members of the drafting committee met with al-Jaafari to present their objections to federalism and other issues blocking an agreement.

Afterward, leaders of the factions ? Shiites, Sunni Arabs and Kurds ? conferred late into the night at the home of Vice President Adil Abdul-Mahdi.