Saturday

When are You going to Leave?

Sunni clerics want troop exit timetable

Posted 01:21am (Mla time) Feb 06, 2005

By Nafa Abdul Jabbar
Agence France-Presse

Iraq's leading Sunni authority on Saturday said it would help to draft the country's new constitution under a timetable for foreign troops to leave, hinting it could then help to end the insurgency.

In Rome, the Italian government scrambled to release a woman reporter kidnapped a day earlier in Baghdad, as two US troops and 11 Iraqis, including two children, were killed in rebel attacks.

The Committee of Muslim Scholars said it was willing to assist with the new constitution provided a consensus was found on a fixed departure of the US-led foreign troops after talks with UN special envoy in Iraq, Ashraf Qazi.

"Qazi asked the Committee to take part in drafting the constitution. We told him that we had conditions and that we would discuss them with the parties that boycotted the polls and would put forward a common stance," said spokesman Omar Ragheb.

"These demands focus on reaching a consensus with all political parties on a withdrawal of foreign forces," he added.

The organisation, which opposed last Sunday's general elections, hinted that the influential grouping of clerics could then weigh on insurgents to end the bloodshed which has marred Iraq's reconstruction.

"Then, the country's elders will tell the resistance: 'No need to spill more blood'," Ragheb said.

According to many observers, much of the success of the post-election period, during which parliament will have to draft a permanent constitution for the country, will depend on the level of involvement of the Sunni community.

Meanwhile, Italy was rocked by the latest hostage crisis in Iraq, following Friday's abduction of Giuliana Sgrena, 56, a correspondent for the leftist Il Manifesto daily.

She was snatched after visiting a mosque where refugees have been encamped since the devastating US-led assault on Fallujah in November. The area has become a notorious danger zone for journalists.

French reporter Florence Aubenas disappeared a month ago as she worked on the same story, while another Western reporter escaped an abduction attempt in the same area 10 days ago.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has said "the negotiating machinery has been set in motion" to press for the journalist's release.

The so-called Islamic Jihad Organisation handed Berlusconi, who has faced down domestic opposition to be one of the staunchest US allies in Iraq, a chilling 72-hour deadline to pull his 3,000 troops out of the country.

A month after Aubenas went missing, there has still been no claim of responsibility, fueling fears over her fate and that of her Iraqi translator, Hussein Hanun al-Saadi.

But French Foreign Minister Michel Barnier was quoted as saying by Aubenas's daily, Liberation, which like Sgrena's employer opposed the war in Iraq, "the most recent elements at our disposal allow us to stay hopeful".

In a rare bomb attack in the southern city of Basra, a booby-trapped motorcycle exploded, killing four Iraqi soldiers, an army spokesman said.

The attack, which took place in the heart of Basra, a Shiite-dominated city and the country's second largest, came amid fears of attempts to sow sectarian strife in Iraq.

In the country's Sunni heartland north of Baghdad, a roadside bomb attack also left two US troops dead and four wounded, the US military said.

Two children were killed when a landmine exploded in the restive Sunni city of Samarra, security and medical sources said.

Two Iraqi soldiers were also killed in a roadside bomb attack in the same city, while another soldier and a civilian were killed during clashes between Iraqi security forces and insurgents in central Samarra.

Another soldier was killed in clashes in the nearby troublespot of Dhuluiya.

Electoral commission officials continued to tally votes, six days after the country held its first democratic polls in half a century.

With 3.3 million votes counted out of an estimated eight million ballots cast last Sunday, the coalition of Shiite parties backed by Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani held a commanding lead over its challengers.

Germany, a fierce critic of the war in Iraq, offered to provide more help for reconstruction, during a visit by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on her fence-mending tour of Europe.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder announced that Berlin was prepared to extend its training programmes for the Iraqi police and military which are currently taking place in the United Arab Emirates.


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