Powerful cleric backs Iraq constitution
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-23 19:58

The Iraqi government's campaign to win support for the country's new constitution has won the critical backing of the most influential Shiite religious leader, less than a month before a national referendum on the draft charter.

The U.S. military on Friday reported the deaths of two American soldiers west of Baghdad overnight. One was killed by a roadside bomb between the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, the other by small arms fire in Ramadi.

In the capital, a suicide bomber on a small public bus set off hidden explosives in a bustling open-air bus terminal Friday, the Muslim day of worship, killing at least five people and wounding eight, police said.

Also in Baghdad, gunmen killed two members of the commission charged with ensuring former members of Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime were banned from the Iraqi hierarchy, police said. Their deaths raised to 14 the number of commission members who have been killed since the 323-member Supreme National Commission for de-Baathification was created two years ago.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, meeting with aides Thursday in the holy city of Najaf, urged his followers to vote "yes" on the new basic law, according to two top officials in al-Sistani's organization. The officials refused to be identified because they are not authorized to speak for the reclusive cleric.

In January, millions of Shiites followed al-Sistani's call to vote in Iraq's first democratic elections in nearly half a century, and the ballot gave the Muslim sect a majority in the new parliament and government.

If two-thirds of the voters in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces reject the constitution during the Oct. 15 national referendum, a new government must be formed and the process of writing the document would start again.

Days after the draft constitution was approved by Iraq's National Assembly and sent to the United Nations for printing and distribution, the government issued fliers and posters, with the banner headline stating: "Read the Constitution, it was written for your freedom." But copies of the proposed constitution haven't been distributed to the Iraqi public yet.

Most Sunni Muslim clerics and politicians have urged their followers to vote against the document, complaining that they did not have adequate representation in drafting it. Sunnis, the favored group under Saddam, account for an estimated 20 percent of the population and form the majority in four provinces.

Two other popular leaders in Iraq's majority Shiite sect, Muqtada al-Sadr and Ayatollah Mohammed al-Yaqoubi, also have rejected the constitution, and their stand — representing a potentially serious rift in the Shiite monolith — has been reflected recent violence in the southern city of Basra.

Rioting broke out in Basra on Monday after British armored vehicles and troops encircled a jail where two British soldiers were taken after their arrest by Iraqi police. Five Iraqis reportedly died in the violence.

British armored vehicles later broke into the jail and freed the two soldiers, allegedly from Shiite militiamen. Basra authorities accused the British of violating Iraqi sovereignty, and the provincial governor demanded Iraqis stop cooperating with the British.

Anthony Cordesman of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Affairs said the escalation in Basra underscored the growing rift among Shiite factions ahead of the referendum and parliamentary elections in December.

"In large part, this is a reaction to a struggle between hard-liners and more moderate religious elements," he said.

Cordesman said the more moderate stance of the largest Shiite political party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was not accepted in southern Iraq, where "a relatively hard-line religious takeover in Basra, one linked closer to Iran," has created animosity toward the British presence.

On Thursday, Gov. Mohammed al-Waili said violators would face unspecified punishment. But later in the day, he said he was in negotiations with the British and the dispute was "about to be solved and the crisis ended." He did not elaborate.

Iraqi security forces in the south have largely fallen under the authority of militias — the military wings of Iraq's various Shiite factions.

Iraqi and British officials have sought to play down the difficulties between local authorities in Basra and the 8,500-soldier British force.

"I do not think that this will be an obstacle that cannot be overcome," Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari said Thursday, a day after meeting with British officials in London.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, in an interview with The Associated Press at the United Nations in New York, said that "what happened in Basra was a local flare-up." He said the incident was not instigated by Iran, as some have speculated.

"The people in the southern provinces have no interest whatsoever to see British forces leave because they're providing security, stability, structure, and relations have always been good ... really between the British forces and the local Iraqis in this area," Zebari said.

A committee Iraq's government has created to investigate the violence was to arrive in Basra on Friday to begin its probe.