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Law triggers tensions

Atul Aneja

Will lead to disputes over resources: Iraq's Sunni leaders

DUBAI: The passage of a law granting greater autonomy to Shia-dominated southern Iraq has begun to generate a wave of sectarian tensions. Parliament passed the legislation on Wednesday during a session which the Sunni

lawmakers boycotted. The law would club Shia dominated provinces of southern Iraq into a single autonomous zone.

Analysts point out that this would mean that the oil rich south would be administratively separated from the Sunni dominated central Iraq, which does not have similar resources.

The other oil bearing area — the Kurdish north — has exercised an autonomous status since the first Gulf War. Saleh Al-Mutlaq, leader of the Sunni Dialogue Front, said, "This resolution is a catastrophe for Iraq ... [It] will push Iraqis to kill each other instead of reconciling with each other." "There will be disputes over resources, wealth and borders between provinces."

The spokesman of the National Dialogue Council, another Sunni organisation, said his group would appeal against the vote. Some Sunni

lawmakers alleged that the voting process was flawed, as Parliament did not have the sufficient quorum to pass it. Shia leaders, including Abdulaziz Al-Hakim, leader of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), dismissed the criticism emerging from Sunni quarters. He said those who opposed the principle of "federalism" were "Saddamists, Ba'athists and Takfiris [Islamist radicals]."

Police chief killed

DPA reports:

The emergency police chief of Babylon, 100 km south of Baghdad, was killed and seven police officers wounded when an explosive device planted in their office detonated on Friday, security sources said.

Meanwhile, the bodies of 14 decapitated construction workers were found near Balad, 100 km north of the capital, police sources said. They had all been shot and decapitated in what was seen as another sectarian attack.

A U.S. soldier was killed by a roadside bomb in northern Iraq, the U.S. command said.

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