DUBAI - The group of Al-Qaeda's frontman in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has slammed US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for urging the participation of Sunni Muslims in drafting the Iraqi constitution, according to a statement posted on the Internet Tuesday.
"We don't welcome Rice ... who came to desecrate the land of the (Muslim) caliphate," the statement, whose authenticity could not be confirmed, said in a reference to Rice's surprise visit to Iraq on Sunday.
Rice called for "the participation of apostates and secular people who claim to be Sunnis," said the statement by the Al-Qaeda Organization in the Land of Two Rivers.
Rice told reporters she planned to ask the Iraqi leadership about the composition of a 55-member constitutional drafting committee that is dominated by Shiites and Kurds and includes only two Sunnis.
"Does anyone draft constitutions except those who have disowned God's book (the Koran)?" the statement asked, adding that "the sword and the bullet are (the means of) dialogue with you, O worshippers of the cross."
Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari, a Shiite Muslim, pledged during a news conference with Rice to bring more representatives from the Sunni minority into the constitution-drafting process to remedy "shortcomings" in the special committee created by parliament.
05/17/2005 12:34 GMT