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U.S. alters Iraq constitution stance; airstrikes launched

BAGHDAD - In a dramatic shift, the U.S. ambassador raised the possibility Tuesday of further changes to Iraq's draft constitution, signaling that the Bush administration has not given up its campaign to push through a charter that will be broadly accepted.

Also Tuesday, U.S. warplanes struck three suspected al-Qaida targets near the Syrian border, killing what the U.S. military called a known terrorist. Iraqi officials said 45 people died, most in fighting between an Iraqi tribe that supports the foreign fighters and another that opposes them.

The nation's Sunni Arabs had demanded revisions in the constitution, finalized last weekend by the Shiite-Kurdish majority over Sunni objections. A Shiite leader said only minor editing would be accepted, because the draft was ready for an Oct. 15 referendum.

But Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters he believed "a final, final draft has not yet been, or the edits have not been, presented yet" - a hint to Shiites and Kurds that Washington wants another bid to accommodate the Sunnis.

The U.S. airstrikes began about 6:20 a.m. in a cluster of towns near Qaim along the Syrian border 200 miles northwest of Baghdad, a U.S. statement said.

LIMA, Peru - The missing flight data recorder from a Peruvian airliner that crash-landed last week has been recovered, turned in by a man who took it from the crash site, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Cesar Arroyo said the man, Cesar Cabello, had taken the data recorder home but handed it over to civil aviation investigators Monday in exchange for a $500 reward posted by TANS Peru airlines.

The flight data recorder is expected to be key in determining whether wind shear caused by a sudden, violent hail storm was to blame for pushing the plane off course as it made its final descent to land, or whether there was pilot error. Arroyo said the recorder would be sent to the United States for analysis.

LONDON - London's mayor will face a disciplinary hearing for comparing a Jewish journalist to a Nazi concentration camp guard, a local government watchdog said Tuesday.

The Standards Board for England said an investigation into charges that Mayor Ken Livingstone "failed to treat others with respect and brought his authority into disrepute" had concluded that a disciplinary hearing should take up the matter.

The Adjudication Panel for England, which will conduct the hearing, could bar Livingstone from office for as long as five years, censure him, order him to apologize or force him to undergo training, said a spokesman for the Standards Board.

ISRAEL POLITICS: Benjamin Netanyahu, a former Israeli prime minister, announced on Tuesday that he intends to challenge the current prime minister, Ariel Sharon, as leader of the ruling Likud Party, a move that threatened the coalition government and increased the likelihood of early elections. The Israeli news media described it as the first time members of the party in power have sought to unseat their leader.

LEBANON SLAYING INQUIRY: The United Nations named four pro-Syrian generals and a former legislator as suspects in the February assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri - the first break in a crime that transformed Lebanon. The Lebanese government, acting at the request of the U.N., detained three of the suspects; a fourth surrendered for questioning and a fifth returned from Syria.