Iraq Watch: August 29, 2005

BAGHDAD, Iraq - A day after the long worked upon Iraqi draft constitution was officialy finiziled some Iraqis took to the streets to protest the newly finished charter.

In Saddam Hussein's predominately Sunni hometown of Tikrit, more than 2,000 protesters, some carrying posters of the deposed dictator, demonstrated against the draft constitution while others vowed to defeat the charter in the upcoming October 15 national referendum.

The draft constitution can be defeated by a two-thirds against it in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces. Although Sunnis are an overall minority - forming only about 20 percent of the nations total population - they are believed to be the majority sect in at least four Iraqi provinces.

Voter regestration for the referendum and other general elections was extended by a week until September 7 in the volatile al-Anbar province, located west of Baghdad, the Iraqi electoral commission announced today.

In violence on Monday, Brig. Gen. Numan Salman Faris, director of the area's rapid response force, was shot to death in Baghdad's Azamiyah district. Also in the capital city, gunmen killed Gen. Nu'man Selman Thabit, an interior ministry official assigned to the Iraqi electoral commission, and Mohammed Radhi al-Hayderi, the brother of former Baghdad governor Ali al-Hayderi, in separate incidents on Monday.

In the former insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, 43 miles west of Baghdad, police found the bodies of at least 15 Iraqis who were believed to have been executed a day earlier after their vehicle was ambushed in the notorious city by insurgents.

Late Monday, the U.S. military announced that one American soldier was killed and another injured when their helicopter was forced to make an emergency landing under intense hostile fire near the northern city of Tal Afar.