Interim Iraq law set to be signed

BAGHDAD - Iraq's Governing Council is due to sign an interim constitution to guide Iraq to sovereignty and elections, as US forces hunt the man they say is behind the deadliest attacks since Saddam Hussein's fall.

The law was expected to be signed by the 25-member US-appointed council on Friday in a ceremony delayed by two days because of national mourning for at least 181 people killed in attacks on Tuesday.

A series of blasts echoed through the Iraqi capital during the morning, but there were no immediate reports of casualties. Police reported at least one roadside bomb, and the US military said there were several blasts at the airport.

The US military says an al Qaeda operative named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is the prime suspect in Tuesday's attacks in Baghdad and Kerbala which targeted Shi'ites marking a religious holiday.

The commander of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan General John Abizaid said on Thursday that Zarqawi, who the US says wants to start an Iraqi civil war, was in Iraq and the target of an intense manhunt.

Other senior US officials have said there is no solid evidence linking Zarqawi to the attacks, but that their sophistication and the scale of the damage bear the hallmark of a well-organised foreign "terrorist" network.

"He's somewhere in Iraq," Abizaid said in a television interview. "We're looking for him hard and we've found quite a few of his operatives...and we've uncovered an awful lot of the work that he's doing."

The head of Iraq's Governing Council said US authorities should have done more to prevent the wave of suicide attacks and bombs that left body parts scattered around holy shrines.

"I put the blame on the authorities," Mohammed Bahr al-Uloum said on Thursday. "The coalition forces are part of the authorities and they are in charge of maintaining security, so they should do all that they can to maintain security."

The top Shi'ite cleric in Iraq Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, who has huge influence among the country's majority Shi'ites, has also blamed the United States for failing to protect the country it is occupying.

IMPOSSIBLE TO STOP ATTACKS

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Thursday neither his troops nor Iraqi security forces could completely protect Iraqis from devastating attacks like Tuesday's.

"It's impossible for anyone - an Iraqi security force, a US security force, a coalition security force - to defend at every place against every conceivable technique at every moment of the day or night," Rumsfeld said at the Pentagon.

At least eight people were killed on Thursday, three in a rocket attack in Baghdad and five in Mosul by US soldiers who opened fire on Iraqis trying to hijack a Turkish truck.

US military officials have stressed that while sovereignty will be handed over mid-year, US and coalition forces will continue to be responsible for security.

The transitional law, agreed upon after marathon talks last weekend, gives details on how Iraq will be governed after polls for a transitional assembly due to be held by January 31, 2005.

It does not deal in detail with the shape of government when Washington hands back sovereignty to Iraqis on June 30 this year. Negotiations on that have yet to begin.

According to Iraqi and US officials, what it does say is that Iraq will have an executive government -- most likely a multiple presidency, a prime minister and a cabinet -- as well as the elected assembly.

The assembly will write a permanent constitution and prepare for full elections to be held by the end of 2005.

Islam is the official religion, but not the main source of law. The document includes a bill of rights, and says Iraq will be a federation. The exact relationship of the provinces of a federal state, most controversially the Kurdish area in the north, to central authority have not been decided.

- REUTERS

Herald Feature: Iraq