Gunmen shot dead three Sunni Arab members of the team drafting Iraq's new constitution on Tuesday, striking a blow against the body seen as the best hope for providing a political end to the insurgency.
Drawing Sunni Arabs on to the committee, due to deliver a new constitution by August 15, was the cornerstone of the US-backed strategy of persuading members of the restive minority to move off the streets and into peaceful politics.
Sheikh Mujbil al-Sheikh Isa, Aziz Ibrahim and Dhamin Hussein Ileywi were shot as they left a restaurant in Baghdad's central Karrada district, a police source said.
A Reuters television cameraman at the city's St Raphael's Hospital saw three bodies being pulled from a dark blue car that had been sprayed with bullets. Their wounded driver was loaded into the back of a truck.
The three men represented a Sunni umbrella group called the Iraqi National Dialogue.
Isa and Ileywi were full members of the 71-strong constitutional committee, while Ibrahim was a member of an advisory panel assisting it, said Iraqi National Dialogue spokesman Salih al-Mutlaq.
Hours earlier, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, issued a statement saying he hoped the draft constitution could be ready early - by the end of this month - if Sunni concerns could be quickly addressed.
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