Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr has said he rejects the Iraqi Constitution backed by his partners in the biggest parliament bloc, raising the possibility of a crisis over one of the country's most explosive issues.
"I reject this Constitution which calls for sectarianism and there is nothing good in this constitution at all," he told al-Jazeera television late on Saturday.
Al-Sadr criticized federalism in the Constitution, which is rejected by Iraq's Sunni Arabs, who fear that it will give both Kurds and Shiites too much power and control over the country's valuable oil resources.
"If there is a democratic government in Iraq, nobody has the right to call for the establishment of federalism anywhere in Iraq whether it is the south, north, middle or any other part of Iraq," he said.
Al-Sadr also called for an investigation into images released last week showing British soldiers beating local youths during a deadly January 2004 riot in the southern city of Basra.
Al-Sadr vast influence in Iraq's mainly Shiite south. He tirelessly calls for the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq, where his loyal militiamen staged two revolts in 2004 against US and other forces across much of central and southern Iraq as well as Baghdad.
In the al-Jazeera interview, al-Sadr called for the closure of detention facilities where he said "terrorism" was being practiced against Iraqis. He named the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad as well as other jails in Basra and Mosul.
Meanwhile, gunmen ambushed a convoy of trucks carrying construction materials to US military north of Baghdad yesterday, killing four Iraqi drivers, police said.
The ambush occurred near Nibaie, about 60km north of the capital, a police spokesman said.
Elsewhere, police Brigadier General Hatim Khalaf and his driver were killed yesterday when a roadside bomb exploded about 35km southwest of Kirkuk, police said. Khalaf was the chief of the operations center for the police in Kirkuk, headquarters of Iraq's northern oil-producing center.
Two policemen were injured in a roadside bombing yesterday in Fallujah, 65km west of Baghdad. The city has seen several deadly attacks in the past two weeks even though it is now one of the most tightly controlled cities in Iraq after it fell to a US assault in November 2004.
Also yesterday, police found the bodies of three men in Baghdad's Shiite stronghold of Sadr City. They appeared to be the latest victims of sectarian tit-for-tat killings, which have sharpened religious tensions as Iraqi politicians attempt to form a national unity government following the December parliamentary elections.
More than 1,000 students at Diyala University marched through the streets of Baquba to the governor's office yesterday to protest the caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed which first appeared in Denmark and against the recent video showing British forces beating Iraqi youths during a January 2004 protest in Amarah.
Signs read "We sacrifice our souls and blood for Islam" and other religious slogans.
On Saturday, more than 20 people were killed in insurgency-related violence, most of it in the Baghdad area. The dead included a US soldier killed in a roadside bombing in eastern Baghdad.
Kouri Richins, a Utah mother who published a children’s book about grief after the death of her husband is to serve a life sentence for his murder without the possibility of parole, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Richins was convicted in March of aggravated murder for lacing a cocktail given to her husband, Eric Richins, with five times the lethal dose of fentanyl at their home near Park City in 2022. A jury also found her guilty of four other felonies, including insurance fraud, forgery and attempted murder for trying to poison her husband weeks earlier on Feb. 14, 2022, with a
‘PERSONAL MISTAKES’: Eileen Wang has agreed to plead guilty to the felony, which comes with a maximum sentence of 10 years in federal prison A southern California mayor has agreed to plead guilty to acting as an illegal agent for the Chinese government and has resigned from her city position, officials said on Monday. Eileen Wang (王愛琳), mayor of Arcadia, was charged last month with one count of acting in the US as an illegal agent of a foreign government. She was accused of doing the bidding of Chinese officials, such as sharing articles favorable to Beijing, without prior notification to the US government as required by law. The 58-year-old was elected in November 2022 to a five-person city council, from which the mayor is selected
DELA ROSA CASE: The whereabouts of the senator, who is wanted by the ICC, was unclear, while President Marcos faces a political test over the senate situation Philippine authorities yesterday were seeking confirmation of reports that a top politician wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC) had fled, a day after gunfire rang out at the Philippine Senate where he had taken refuge fearing his arrest. Senator Ronald “Bato” dela Rosa, the former national police chief and top enforcer of former Philippine president Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs,” has been under Senate protection and is wanted for crimes against humanity, the same charges Duterte is accused of. “Several sources confirmed that the senator, Senator Bato, is no longer in the Senate premises, but we are still getting confirmation,” Presidential
HELP DENIED? The US Department of State said that the Cuban leadership refuses to allow the US to provide aid to Cubans, ‘who are in desperate need of assistance’ US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Wednesday said that Cuba’s leadership must change, as Washington renewed an offer of US$100 million in aid if the communist nation agrees to cooperate. Cuba has been suffering severe economic tumult led by an energy shortage that plunged 65 percent of the country into darkness on Tuesday. Cuba’s leaders have blamed US sanctions, but Rubio, a Cuban American and critic of the government established by Fidel Castro, said the system was to blame, including corruption by the military. “It’s a broken, nonfunctional economy, and it’s impossible to change it. I wish it were different,” he told
RSS