IRAQ: Leaders of Iraq's Sunni Arabs have set terms for their involvement in drafting a constitution, indicating they want about a third of the seats on the body supposed to propose a new text by August.
There was no immediate response from the Shia-led government that took power in an election that the once-dominant Sunni minority largely boycotted. Officials have said they could expand the parliamentary committee to bring in more Sunnis.
A congress of leading Sunni organisations resolved to end discussions on the constitution if they were not given a bigger representation on the negotiating body. Without their input, it may prove hard to avoid an effective Sunni veto at a referendum.
Sunni guerrillas, on the other hand, oppose co-operation with the new administration or the US occupying forces and issued new death threats against Sunni leaders engaged in discussions.
Among attacks across Iraq yesterday, rebels ambushed the motorcade of a Kurdish parliamentarian on the constitutional committee, killing two of his bodyguards in Baghdad.
Police said 22 soldiers from Shia southern Iraq were kidnapped in the rebel Sunni heartlands of the western desert.
With civil war a possibility if major groups cannot overcome their differences, Shia and Kurdish leaders, including Iraq's new president, defended the ethnic and sectarian militias they once fielded against Saddam.
They said they should play a major role in fighting the insurgency among his fellow Sunnis.
The US occupying authority and previous Iraqi leaders it appointed had only limited success in persuading armed groups like the Shia Badr Brigades and Kurdish peshmerga to disarm and disband or merge into newly formed government forces.
An alliance grouping most of the main Sunni Arab groups, representing the 20 per cent minority that dominated Iraq for much of the past century, resolved at a conference to seek 25 seats on the parliamentary committee drafting a constitution.
Because most Sunnis took no part in the January election, few sit in parliament and so only two are on the committee.
Shias, who now dominate parliament along with the Kurdish minority, say they are keen to draw Sunnis into the process. Some officials say they could expand the number of seats on the committee. Adding 20-plus Sunni members could take the size of the body to about 75 or 80.