August 20, 2005


BAGHDAD -- Masked gunmen killed three Sunni Arabs in front of horrified witnesses outside a mosque in Mosul on Friday, after grabbing them as they hung posters urging fellow Sunnis to vote in a referendum on the new constitution.

As the Monday deadline to finish the constitution approaches, Sunni Arabs and some Shiites rallied in Baghdad and elsewhere to protest calls for a federated state--a demand of the Kurds and the biggest Shiite party but a key stumbling block to an agreement on the charter.

The three members of Iraq's largest Sunni Arab political group, the Iraqi Islamic Party, were seized in a Mosul neighborhood where they were promoting voter registration for the Oct. 15 referendum on the new constitution, said party official Nouredine al-Hayali.

They were driven to another neighborhood, shoved against a wall near the Dhi al-Nourein mosque and shot dead while more masked gunmen blocked off a major street, witnesses said. The gunmen fled in three cars, leaving the bodies behind.

It was the second armed attack in two days against Sunni Arabs participating in the U.S.-backed political process, despite threats from insurgents and Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq.

On Thursday masked gunmen burst into the Sunni grand mosque in Ramadi, 135 miles south of Mosul, as religious, political and tribal leaders were discussing the constitutional process. The gunmen demanded that the meeting end and then opened fire, said Omar Seri, secretary of the governor of Anbar province.

Three members of the Sunni Association of Muslim Scholars and a bodyguard were injured, Seri said.

In Baghdad, about 1,000 people including Sunnis and Shiite followers of radical cleric Moqtada Sadr rallied Friday, waving Iraqi and Shiite flags and chanting, "No to separation, yes to unity."

A similar rally was held in the religiously mixed city of Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad.