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Iraq

Deadline for draft extends one day

BAGHDAD - The speaker of Iraq's Parliament announced a one-day extension early today in talks on the new constitution - a fourth attempt to win Sunni Arab approval. But he said that if no agreement is reached, the document would bypass Parliament and be decided in an Oct. 15 referendum.

Shiite leaders signaled they had lost patience with protracted negotiating and wanted to refer the draft approved by them and the Kurds on Monday to the electorate. With repeated missed deadlines and no sign of compromise, a process designed to bring the country's disparate ethnic, cultural and religious groups closer together appeared instead to be pushing them further apart.

However, Parliament Speaker Hajim al-Hassani, a Sunni, said he remained hopeful of a deal.

"We found that time was late and we saw that the matters will need another day in order to reach results that please everyone," Hassani said on national television shortly after the midnight deadline. Today's session was an attempt to give the Shiites time to respond to proposals tabled at a late-night meeting for which they did not show up.

As a sign of deep religious and ethnic tensions already tearing at Iraq, police found the bodies of 36 men Thursday in a dry river bed near the Iranian border, their hands bound and with bullet wounds in the head. The bodies had no identification.

Also Thursday, gunmen opened fire on cars owned by President Jalal Talabani, killing eight of his bodyguards and wounding 15, a security official said. Talabani, a Kurd, was not in any of the cars when the attack occurred in a mixed Shiite-Sunni area north of Baghdad.

In response to deadly fighting between Shiites the day before, radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr called on his followers Thursday to end the clashes in the interest of Shiite unity.

Fighting between his followers and those of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the biggest Shiite party, broke out in several cities after a brawl in front of Sadr's office in Najaf left four dead and the building in flames.

"I will not forget this attack on the office ... but Iraq is passing through a critical and difficult period that requires unity," Sadr said.

His call was generally heeded, although three rockets were fired shortly before midnight at the party's office in Karbala.

[Last modified August 26, 2005, 01:37:18]