Islam gets major role in Iraqi civil law under draft constitution

A PART of Iraq’s draft constitution released to the press yesterday gives Islam a major role in Iraqi civil law, raising concerns that women could lose rights in marriage, divorce and inheritance.

The proposal also appears to rule out non-governmental militias. On the Baghdad's western outskirts, gunmen shot up a pair of buses carrying workers home from a government-owned company yesterday, killing 12 and wounding nine, police said. Attackers also fatally shot a Baghdad police officer and wounded a Health Ministry employee. Insurgents are waging a bloody campaign of bombings and other gun attacks in an effort to undermine Iraq's government and its political efforts, such as drafting a new constitution. The civil law section, one of six to make up Iraq's new charter, covers the rights and duties of citizens and public and private freedoms. The language is not final, but members of the drafting committee said there was agreement on most of its wording.

Committee members have been rushing to complete the constitution so the Iraqi National Assembly can set the final wording by August 15. Parliament's version would be put to a public vote by mid-October, and if approved, elections would follow by year's end.

The drafting panel's efforts got a boost on Monday when its 12 Sunni Arab members ended a boycott, easing fears the document might be rejected by the ethnic community at the heart of the insurgency.

Sunni Arab support is crucial because the charter can be scuttled if voters in three of Iraq's 18 provinces reject it by a two-thirds majority and Sunni Arabs are a majority in four provinces. Sunni Arabs make up about 20% of Iraq's 27 million people but dominate areas where the insurgency is raging.

Yesterday, Iraq's most feared terrorist group warned Sunni Arabs against taking part in the October referendum on the constitution, saying their participation would make them infidels and therefore subject to the same treatment as occupation forces. Another internet statement purportedly from the terror group said its "court" decided on Monday to kill two Algerian diplomats kidnapped last week in Baghdad, but there was no word on whether the threat had been carried out against Ali Belaroussi and Azzedine Belkadi.