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.
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