Baghdad, Iraq — Masked gunmen killed three Sunni Arabs in front of horrified witnesses outside a mosque in Mosul on Friday, after grabbing them as they hung posters urging fellow Sunnis to vote in a referendum on the new constitution.
As the Monday deadline to finish the constitution approaches, Sunni Arabs and some Shiites rallied in Baghdad and elsewhere to protest calls for a federated state - a demand of the Kurds and the biggest Shiite party but a key stumbling block to an agreement on the charter.
Talks continued into Saturday morning with U.S. officials intensifying pressure on the Kurds to accept Shiite and Sunni demands for a greater role of Islam in government and to abandon their demand for the right to secede, Kurdish officials said.
The three members of Iraq's largest Sunni Arab political group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, were seized in a Mosul neighborhood where they were promoting voter registration for the Oct. 15 referendum on the new constitution, said party official Nouredine al-Hayali.
They were driven to another neighborhood, shoved against a wall near the Dhi al-Nourein mosque and shot dead while more masked gunmen blocked off a major street, witnesses said.
In the mostly Shiite Sadr City area of Baghdad, about 1,000 people demonstrate against the proposed federal structure in the draft of Iraq's new constitution Friday Aug. 19, 2005. 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.
In recent weeks, various Sunni groups have been urging fellow Sunnis to vote in the referendum and a general election planned for December. The voter-registration deadline is Sept. 1.
The United States believes the key to defeating the Sunni-dominated insurgency is to encourage an inclusive political process that would encourage disaffected Sunni Arabs to lay down arms.
The entire process hinges on the success of the drafting committee in producing a constitution acceptable to all Iraqi communities by Monday's deadline. If parliament approves the draft, it goes to voters for ratification in October.
However, negotiations in the heavily guarded Green Zone have bogged down over such issues as federalism, distribution of Iraq's oil wealth, the role of Islam and Kurdish demands for the right to secede - a stand that goes beyond mere federalism.
Kurdish negotiators, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, told The Associated Press the Americans were pressing Kurds to accept Shiite and Sunni demands for a greater role for Islam at the expense of women's rights and civil liberties.
A U.S. Embassy spokesman said he was not aware of results of the latest round of talks. If the Kurdish claims are true, it would appear the United States wants to please the Shiite majority in order to get a draft charter by the deadline. Kurds make up between 15 and 20 percent of Iraq's population, compared to an estimated 60 percent for the Shiites.
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