Under intense US pressure, the head of Iraq’s constitution commission today said the group could finish the constitution by August 15 if political leaders overcame their differences.

A suicide car bomb killed an Iraqi Shiite politician and three others near Baghdad as they were heading to parliament today, an attack likely to further fuel tensions between the minority Sunni Arabs and the country’s Shiite majority.

Three suicide car bombings killed 16 people in northern Iraq today, including a top municipal council leader plus a bodyguard of Iraq’s Kurdish deputy prime minister, police said.