MIDDLE EAST

SUNNIS WORKING ON IRAQI CONSTITUTION ASSASSINATED

BAGHDAD, Iraq – Gunmen assassinated two Sunni Arabs involved in the drafting of Iraq’s constitution yesterday, another blow to American and Iraqi efforts to draw members of the disaffected community away from the insurgency and into the political process. A committee member, Mijbil Issa, an adviser to the group, Dhamin Hussein al-Obeidi, and their bodyguard died in a hail of gunfire from two vehicles as they left a restaurant in Baghdad’s Karradah district, police said. A prominent lawyer, Issa, was among 15 Sunni Arabs appointed last month to the 55-member constitutional committee – made up mostly of Shiites and Kurds – to give the Sunni minority a greater voice in building a new Iraq. Ten other Sunnis, including al-Obeidi, were named as advisers to the committee. Insurgents had threatened Sunnis who help draft the constitution, and two committee members resigned earlier because they feared for their lives. Issa was the first to be assassinated. The attack came as the committee was meeting at Baghdad’s Convention Center in the Green Zone. The session was suspended when members learned of the killings. Washington has urged the government of Prime Minister al-Jaafari to give Sunnis a greater role in political life. Most Sunnis boycotted the January 30 election, handing control of the new parliament to Shiites and Kurds. The insurgents have stepped up suicide bombings and assassinations. Yesterday, gunmen opened fire on a minibus carrying Iraqi workers to an American base near Baqouba, killing 13. Police said the dead included 10 base employees and three people in another vehicle. Gunmen also killed seven people, including a police colonel, in a series of attacks in Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad.

– Associated Press

HEZBOLLAH INCLUDED IN NEW LEBANON CABINET

BEIRUT, Lebanon – Lebanon’s prime minister-designate announced his new Cabinet yesterday, a government dominated by opponents of Syria, although it includes a member of the militant Hezbollah group, which Washington brands a terrorist organization. The 24-member Cabinet, the first since Syria withdrew its troops from Lebanon, omits prominent Christian representation of followers of former General Michel Aoun. The formation of the new Cabinet brings to an end almost three weeks of political squabbling over key posts. The country’s pro-Syrian president, Emile Lahoud, repeatedly demanded changes in Prime Minister-designate Fuad Saniora’s suggested lineups. The former army commander who returned to Lebanon from 14 years of exile in France, General Aoun, wanted the Justice portfolio but was refused. It went instead to a Lahoud ally, Charles Rizk. Hezbollah’s Mohammed Fneish received the power and hydraulic resources ministry, while the militant group’s ally, Tarrad Hamadeh, retained the post of labor minister. The key Foreign Ministry went to Shiite Fawzi Salloukh after negotiations with Hezbollah and its rival Amal movement. Mr. Salloukh is a former veteran diplomat who served for more than three decades with the foreign corps. He does not belong to either group, but was acceptable to both. Mr. Saniora said he was “proud” of Mr. Fneish’s participation and promised that the Cabinet will work on improving relations with Syria, which have suffered since the withdrawal. The new administration also includes ministers close to Mr. Lahoud, including his son-in-law, former Defense Minister Elias Murr, who survived an assassination attempt on June 12. He retains the Defense portfolio.

– Associated Press

SOUTHEAST ASIA

THAILAND IMPOSES EMERGENCY RULE TO COUNTER ISLAMISTS

BANGKOK, Thailand – Thailand’s Cabinet yesterday imposed emergency rule in three provinces in the Muslim-dominated south, letting authorities detain suspects without charge and censor the press as the military battles an 18-month insurgency. The declaration, which took immediate effect, came under a new decree that grants Prime Minister Shinawatra sweeping authority to combat the insurgency, which has left 900 people dead since it began. Critics say the decree was enacted too hastily and gives Mr. Thaksin too much power at the expense of human and civil rights. The declaration covers Yala, Narathiwat, and Pattani, the only Muslim-dominated provinces in mostly Buddhist Thailand. The decree, which lets Mr. Thaksin unilaterally declare emergency rule, was signed into law by the country’s King Bhumibol Adulyadej. There were no immediate reports yesterday of authorities using it to take any actions. The decree follows Islamic insurgents’ raid Thursday on Yala’s capital, where they destroyed electrical transformers to plunge the city into blackness, then set off firebombs and other explosives around town and fired automatic weapons at security forces before escaping. A former prime minister, Anand Panyarachun, who heads the National Reconciliation Commission appointed by the government earlier this year to seek peace in the south, criticized the decree. He warned that “giving the government broader power could lead to increased violence and eventually a real crisis.”

– Associated Press

EASTERN EUROPE

CHECHEN INSURGENTS KILL 14 IN BOMBING

ROSTOV-ON-DON, Russia – Insurgents set off a bomb yesterday near a police minibus in breakaway Chechnya after luring the security forces into a trap, killing 14 people, including two children, and wounding more than 20 others, regional officials said. The attackers set the trap by firing at a corpse left in a stolen police jeep to make the Interior Ministry troops believe a gun attack was taking place and get them to go to the scene, the head of the Chechen Security Council, Rudnik Dudayev, said. “When the security detachment arrived at Znamenskoye, the bomb went off,” he said, according to the Interfax news agency. Earlier, officials had said the attackers opened fire on a vehicle carrying security forces and then set off a bomb when a second vehicle came to help. Russian news reports citing unidentified officials said one child was killed while riding a bicycle past the scene. Chechnya’s Moscow-backed president, Alu Alkhanov, said 14 people had died and more than 20 others were wounded in the attack in the village of Znamenskoye, the Interfax news agency reported. Mr. Alkhanov accused Chechen rebel warlord Shamil Basayev of ordering the attack but insisted the situation was under control. The guerrilla attack, one of the bloodiest in recent months, occurred in an area of Chechnya under firm Russian control, again demonstrating Moscow’s inability to end the decade-long separatist insurgency in the mainly Muslim southern province. President Putin told a Cabinet meeting the “latest tragic events” showed the need to quickly increase security in the troubled Caucasus region, where violence from Chechnya is increasingly spilling over into neighboring southern provinces. “We need to do it – and as soon as possible,” he said in televised remarks.

– Associated Press

EAST ASIA

1 MILLION EVACUATED IN SOUTHEASTERN CHINA

SHANGHAI, China – Typhoon Haitang churned into southeastern China yesterday, bringing torrential rain and high winds to coastal areas where more than 1 million people had fled their homes. Haitang weakened after moving inland, a day after slamming into Taiwan where it killed four people, caused heavy flooding and damaged cities and farms. There were no immediate reports of casualties on China’s mainland. Chinese government forecasters predicted the typhoon would be soon be downgraded to a tropical storm, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The typhoon hit the mainland at the coastal town of Huangqi in Fujian province at 5:10 p.m., with wind speeds at its center up to 74 mph, said a provincial weather bureau official who identified herself only as Miss Li. Heavy rain drenched much of the southeastern province. State television showed villages awash, their streets turned into rivers. Soldiers delivered boxes of food to people in temporary shelters. More than 1 million people were evacuated from their homes in Fujian and Zhejiang province directly to the north, China Central Television reported. China had braced for Haitang for days, with soldiers stacking sandbags along embankments. Even before the storm hit, the Sai river near Fujian’s city of Fu’an had surged to 6 feet above the official flood level, according to the Fujian Water Management Bureau’s Web site. In Taiwan, falling rocks killed one man, two women drowned, and a fourth victim was swept away by water while fishing, the Center for Disaster Response said. A fisherman was also reported missing.

– Associated Press