SAN FRANCISCO, Feb 8: Grand Ayatollah Syed Ali al Sistani, who was the architect of what appears to be a victory for Shias in last week's elections in Iraq, is now poised to shape the new government , including its choice of prime minister and the drafting of the country's constitution, the Los Angeles said on Tuesday.

In a lengthy report about post-election Iraq, the US paper said that the extent to which Iraq becomes an Islamic or a secular state will be largely in the hands of this Iranian-born cleric, who, like most of the ayatollahs who surround him, has not met with US diplomats or their British counterparts since the invasion in 2003.

A friend, of Ayatollah Sistani, Sheikh Jalaludin Saghir, said that the revered leader had readied himself to wrestle with constitutional principles. "He is knowledgeable about the American, French and German constitutions and the unwritten British constitution," said Sheikh Jalaludin Saghir, the imam at Baghdad's Bratha mosque, one of the city's largest Shia mosques.

But it is unclear exactly what kind of government Ayatollah Sistani wants because he does not give interviews to western reporters - the only way to gauge his leanings is to talk to Shia religious figures and politicians who have met him and to read his copious writings, the Los Angeles Times said.

Ayatollah Sistani has explicitly distanced himself from Iran - he refused to meet a delegation from the Iranian foreign ministry who came to help resolve troubles with the anti-American Shia leader Muqtada Sadr.

The implication is that he wants to make it clear both to his Iraqi followers and to the Iranians that he will not take orders from his Persian neighbour. But Ayatollah Sistani's roots are in Iran. He was born in the Iranian city of Mashhad and eschews the philosophy of Velayat-i-Faqih, or rule of religious jurists of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.

The areas in the constitution that matter to Ayatollah Sistani concern the role of Islam in Iraq, according to Saghir. "The main religion of Iraq is Islam, and laws should not run counter to Islamic teachings," he said.

Ayatollah Sistani's position is analogous to that of the Christian Coalition in American politics. He wants civil law and policy to be in conformance with Islamic law and principle as far as possible, the Los Angeles Times report added.