BAGHDAD, Aug 11: A leading Iraqi Shia politician on Thursday demanded autonomy for provinces where the majority community predominates as US President George Bush assured the constitution will be ready by Aug 15. As Iraqi leaders battled to meet the self-imposed deadline, the Al Qaeda network threatened to kill the writers of the new charter and also attack those participating in the Oct 15 constitutional referendum.

“The tribunal has decided to fight those who ordered the constitution (and) those who are drawing it up,” Al Qaeda’s Iraqi branch said.

“The tribunal calls on those who have been mistakenly misled by those who have strayed ... to keep away from blasphemous electoral centres because they will be the legitimate targets of the mujahideen,” it said. Last month two Sunni members of the 71-member constitutional panel were gunned down in broad daylight in Baghdad.

As the latest threat came in, President Bush said the constitution would be ‘a critical step on the path to Iraqi self-reliance’ and a withdrawal for US troops.

“We believe that constitution can be, and will be, agreed upon by Aug 15. I’m operating on the assumption that it will be,” Mr Bush said at his Texas ranch. A Shia leader called on Thursday for autonomy in the central and southern provinces of Iraq, a proposal that would mirror a Kurdish one in the far north.

The call from Abdul Aziz al Hakim, leader of a powerful Shia-dominated party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), gave new support to Kurdish demands for a fully federal Iraq.

“We see the need for an autonomous zone in the centre and south of Iraq,” Mr Hakim told reporters in Najaf, adding that discussions were continuing on whether there should be one or more autonomous regions for the Shias.

Some Shia politicians have previously called for autonomy in the south and centre — notably the leader of the secular Iraqi National Congress, Ahmed Chalabi, a one-time Pentagon darling now accused by Washington of passing on state secrets to Iran.

But it was the first time that Mr Hakim, a former exile in Iran who headed the victorious Shia alliance in January elections, had lent such explicit support.

His comments came after meetings in Najaf on Wednesday with Shia spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani and radical leader Moqtada al Sadr, who led his outlawed militia in a six-month uprising against the US-led forces last year.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, who heads a rival Shia religious party, Dawa, said last week that Ayatollah Sistani backed the principle of a federal constitution for Iraq.

The emerging consensus between Kurds and Shias on a federal constitution leaves only the Sunnis at odds on one of the key sticking points in the drafting of the new charter.—AFP