Iraq's Sunnis Register to Vote in Droves

If voters approve the constitution on Oct. 15, the country will vote in national elections on Dec. 15 for Iraq's first full-term post-invasion government. If the charter is defeated, Iraqis will vote on Dec. 15 for another temporary government, which would try again to draft a constitution. Defeating the constitution requires a two-thirds rejection in at least three of Iraq's 18 provinces.

Many Sunnis oppose the draft constitution because it would allow the Kurdish north and the heavily Shiite south to form separate, oil-rich regions. The split could leave the center and west with little political power and few resources.

Some Sunni leaders are working to forge an unusual alliance with Moqtada Sadr, a prominent Shiite cleric whose militia twice battled U.S. forces last year.

Sadr called upon his followers this summer to register and then await word from him on whether to vote. The rejection of the charter by his followers, numbering in the hundreds of thousands, and by the Sunnis would sink the draft document, some Sunnis say.

"So there is no doubt that many people registered their names in answer to his call," said Abdul Hadi Darraji, a Sadr spokesman in Baghdad. "And now, we await his instructions."

While U.S. and Iraqi leaders have said Sunni acceptance of the political system was essential to ending the Sunni-based insurgency, some leaders say Iraq could enter its most dangerous period yet if the Sunni-led vote against the charter prevailed and political struggle ensued.

Adil Lami, general manager of Iraq's electoral commission in Baghdad, said that he had no national figures for voter registration but that "large enthusiasm" in the heavily Sunni west had led the way in the drive.

In other violence Wednesday, gunmen killed four people at an Iraqi police checkpoint near Baqubah, the capital of Diyala province, officials said.

One person was killed in the Kurdish town of Kalar during a riot over Iraq's chronic water and electricity shortages since the U.S.-led invasion, news agencies said.

Meanwhile, U.S. warplanes bombed a house in an al Qaeda stronghold near the Syrian border, the U.S. military said. Military officials said they believe the airstrike killed a key local al Qaeda figure who helped smuggle foreign fighters into the country.

Special correspondents Omar Fekeiki in Baghdad, Salih Saif Aldin in Tikrit and Hassan Shammari in Baqubah contributed to this report.