Juan Cole - 08/21/05

Islamic Law Primary in Iraqi Constitution
Thousands demonstrate against Federalism
Kurdish Masses demand right to Secede

Guerrillas ambushed a group of special police in Baghdad on Saturday, killing two of them. There was also a bombing of police in Fallujah. Altogether, al-Sharq al-Awsat says, some 11 Iraqi police and civilians were killed by guerrilla action on Saturday, and four guerrillas were killed by US and Iraqi troops south of the capital. On Saturday a US soldier was killed by an improvised explosive device.

In Ramadi, 5,000 Sunni Arab demonstrators came out to protest the designation of Iraq as a federal state in the new constitution. [Al-Sharq al-Awsat/ AFP:] There was a similar demonstration in Kirkuk by Arabs and Turkmen against federalism. (A federal Iraq will probably cede Kirkuk to Kurdistan, which will have vast local powers of governance, and the Turkmen and Arabs resident in the city (probably over half the population if taken together) oppose this development.) Many of the demonstrators were Shiite followers of Muqtada al-Sadr. They denounced federalism as likely to lead to the partition and weakening of Iraq, and thus as an imperialist and Zionist plot.