13 Iraqis, Marine Die in Attacks

A U.S. Marine and 13 Iraqis were killed in attacks across Iraq as negotiations continued over possible changes to the nation’s draft constitution.

The Marine was killed Saturday by a roadside bomb in the town of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, the military announced Sunday. It was the ninth American death during a series of offensives in western Iraq seeking to knock insurgents off balance and prevent attacks during the national vote on the constitution next Saturday.

The death brought to 1,957 the number of U.S. military personnel who have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an independent tally.

The Iraqis were killed in several separate incidents Sunday.

In one attack, masked gunmen in police commando uniforms burst into a school in Samarra, north of Baghdad, and pulled a Shiite Muslim teacher out of his classroom. They fatally shot him in the hallway as students watched from their desks, police said.

In another incident, a suicide car bomb killed a woman and a child in the southern city of Basra.

Interior Minister Bayan Jabr told an Arabic newspaper it would take five years to put down Iraq’s insurgency. He said Iraq’s security forces only had rifles “while the terrorists possess all kinds of advanced weapons.”

Amid the violence, Shiite and Kurdish officials negotiated Sunday with Sunni Arab leaders over possible additions to the draft constitution, trying to win Sunni support for the referendum.

But the sides remained far apart over basic issues -- including the federalism that Shiites and Kurds insist on but Sunnis fear will lead to the country’s break-up. Copies of the constitution were already being passed out to the public to read before the vote.

Many Sunni leaders are calling on their followers to turn out in force for the referendum -- to vote to defeat a draft they say will lead to oil-rich Shiite and Kurdish states in the south and north, leaving the Sunni minority with few resources in a central zone.