BAGHDAD, Aug 19: Iraqi leaders expressed optimism on Friday that the final draft of a new constitution would be ready by the weekend even as leaders of the Sunni community warned that a federal system would be rejected at the polls.

On the ground, seven Iraqis died in attacks, including three Sunni members of the Iraqi Islamic Party, who were gunned down when they were putting up posters to call for participation in parliamentary elections due in December after the ratification of the constitution.

Party spokesman Noureddine Hayali said the three were kidnapped in the main northern city of Mosul and later executed.

In another headache for negotiators seeking consensus on the country’s future, thousands of supporters of Shia radical leader Moqtada al Sadr took to the streets in a show of opposition to a federal Iraq.

“The charter will be finalized by Saturday or Sunday... before the present deadline ends,” said drafting committee member Munther al Fadhal.

The committee failed to meet a Monday deadline for a final text amid persistent differences not only over federalism but also the role of Islam, so parliament granted a one-week extension.

“The meeting of leaders is on and they are trying to sort out the differences,” said committee member Mahmud Othman.

Even Sunni members of the drafting committee acknowledged that Shias and Kurds were likely to make the necessary compromises to agree a final text by the deadline, given the massive US-led pressure to keep the political transition on track.

But the Sunnis warned that while a federal text might pass on the committee and in parliament, it would be rejected by Sunni voters in a referendum promised for October.

“The people of Iraq will defeat a federal constitution in the October referendum,” Sunni member Saleh al Motlag said.

“We know that the constitution will be ready in the coming days, but if it adopts federalism, it will be rejected by the people.

“We are against the principle of federalism because we want the country to be centrally governed.”

Under the terms of interim legislation, the constitution fails if two-thirds of the voters in any three of Iraq’s 18 provinces reject the text in the referendum.

The Sunnis form a majority in Al Anbar, Tamim and Salaheddin provinces.

The community has expressed particular concern about the distribution of oil revenues under a federal constitution as the lion’s share of Iraq’s huge oil reserves lie in the Kurdish north and Shia south.

Their cause received support from across Iraq’s sectarian divide with thousands of followers of Moqtada Sadr, the fiery religious figure who led a six-month uprising against the US-led forces last year, demonstrating against a federal constitution after Friday prayers.

The protesters in the radicals’ stronghold of Sadr City and two other Shia neighbourhoods in Baghdad were seen carrying national flags and banners that read ‘No, No to Division’ and ‘Yes, Yes to Unity’.

The negotiations on the constitution were overshadowed by a trio of deadly bombings on Wednesday that killed at least 43 people at a crowded Baghdad bus station and a nearby hospital where the casualties were being taken.

Militants loyal to Al Qaeda’s Iraq frontman, Abu Musab al Zarqawi, denied responsibility for the attacks.

“We, the Al Qaeda Organization in the Land of Two Rivers, declare we are not responsible for the Al Nahda bombings. We had no hand in them, from near or far,” said an Internet statement posted in the name of the group.

US PRESSURE: The US administration has put immense pressure on the drafting committee to stick by the target date for fear that any loss of momentum in the political process will play into the hands of guerillas.