Insurgents launch new attacks aheade of referendum

Insurgents in Iraq launched a new salvo of attacks five days ahead of the country’s crucial constitutional referendum, killing at least 18 Iraqis and a US soldier with suicide car bombs, roadside bombs and drive-by shootings today, police said.

Five mortar shells also were fired at a hotel in the southern city of Hillah where a US regional embassy office is based, with one round hitting the building and leaving a large hole in a wall, police said. No casualties were reported.

The latest attacks came as Shiite and Kurdish officials continued to negotiate with Sunni Arab leaders over last-minute additions to the constitution, trying to win Sunni support ahead of next weekend’s referendum. US officials were acting as mediators.

But the sides appeared to remain far apart today over basic issues – including the federalism that Shiites and Kurds insist on – and copies of the draft constitution already are being distributed to the public across the country.

US and Iraqi officials see the referendum as an important step in the country’s democratic reforms and the eventual withdrawal of US-led coalition forces.

But many minority Sunnis plan to vote “no,” fearing the document would create two oil-rich and nearly autonomous regions – a Kurdish one in the north and a Shiite one in the south – and leave most Sunnis isolated in central and western Iraq.

That was clear in Mosul when about 600 Sunni politicians, tribal leaders and clerics met in the northern city and urged Iraqis to reject the constitution, saying it would partition the country along secular lines. “Our rejection of the constitution is motivated by our desire for a united Iraq, not because we are Sunnis,” they said in a statement.

Sunni-led insurgent groups have demanded a boycott in the vote and were launching attacks across the country, killing hundreds of Iraqis in the last two weeks.

Sunnis can defeat the charter if they garner a two-thirds ”no” vote in any three of Iraq’s 18 provinces – and they have the potential to make that threshold in four provinces. But turnout is key, since they must outweigh Shiite and Kurdish populations in some of those areas.

On Sunday, militants killed 13 Iraqis, including a Shiite teacher who was dragged out of his classroom and shot to death at a college in the town of Samarra, north of Baghdad.

With today’s death toll, at least 338 people have been killed across Iraq in the last 15 days, including nine American soldiers who died during a series of offensives the US military has been waging in western Iraq in an attempt to knock al Qaida militants and other insurgents off balance and prevent attacks during Saturday’s national vote on the constitution.

In the worst militant attack, a suicide car bomb exploded near a US-Iraqi checkpoint leading into the Green Zone – the fortified neighbourhood of Baghdad where US and Iraqi officers are located. The blast, near a police station in Nosoor Square, killed three Iraqi policemen and three civilians and wounded two other civilians, Captain Qassim Hussein said.

A US soldier was also killed in the blast, the US military said. The car was packed with 11 mortar rounds and 60 pounds of explosives when it detonated, US Sgt 1st Class David Abrams said.

The American death brought to 1,954 the number of US service members who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003.

Teacher Riyadh Qassim heard the blast from his nearby elementary school.

“A car bomb exploded. We ran out of school and saw two cars engulfed in flames, one of them a police car. Some of the policemen were in a panic,” he said.

At least two other suicide attackers detonated car bombs within an hour of the lethal attack, wounding four Iraqi policemen, police said. Also at about the same time, a suicide car bomb went off in Khaldiyah, 75 miles west of Baghdad, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Four policemen were killed in shootings in Baghdad. In Kirkuk, a city 180 miles north of the capital, four Iraqi soldiers were killed in two separate roadside bomb attacks, police said.

Further to the north, two Sunni Arab political leaders, an Iraqi soldier and an Iraqi policeman died in separate drive-by shootings in Mosul, officials said.

In cities, towns and villages across Iraq, 5 million copies of the official text of the constitution were being distributed to voters to consider before the polls.

But all sides were still debating last-minute changes in a bid to swing some Sunnis to a “yes” vote.

Kurdish leader Massoud Barzani continued to meet with Sunni Arab leaders in an effort to convince them about the changes, officials from all sides said.

US Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad “has a central role in the talks,” said Kurdish legislator Mahmoud Othman, but he would not say if Khalilzad was actually attending the meetings. US officials could not be reached for comment, but have confirmed in recent weeks that Khalilzad was involved in discussions over last-minute “tweaks” to the charter.

When Iraqi negotiators completed the draft constitution late last month, Sunni Arabs refused to endorse it. Some complained the negotiating process had been rushed under pressure from Washington to stick to the tight timetable that had been set for Iraq’s political process.