Tuesday, October 11 2005 09:42 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Baghdad: Gunmen opened fire yesterday (Oct 10, 2005) on a convoy of cars carrying Arab League officials, wounding a policeman escorting them, as the league delegation tried to piece together a conference to reconcile Iraq's Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

The league faced scepticism from Shiites and Kurds in the government over the proposed conference. Many in the two communities, which now dominate Iraq, resent the organization's perceived inaction in response to Saddam Hussein's regime and distrust the mainly Sunni league's intentions, seeing it as biased in favour of Iraq's Sunni minority.

Gunmen hiding in nearby houses started shooting as the convoy of the 10-member Arab League delegation was driving on a highway in Baghdad under police guard, said police Maj. Gen. Hussein Ali Kamal, head of intelligence at the Iraqi Interior Ministry.

Police returned fire, and one policeman was slightly wounded and a police car damaged in the gunfire, but no one Arab League members were hurt, Ali Kamal told sources.

The league officials then went on to Baghdad's Umm al-Qura mosque and met with the Association of Muslim Scholars, an Arab Sunni Muslim group that is calling on Sunnis to vote against the country's draft constitution in Saturday's key referendum.

An Iraqi police officer in the area first reported that the attackers were in four cars that pulled up alongside the delegation on the highway, but Ali Kamal said that information later turned out to be inaccurate.

It was not immediately clear who launched the attack, but Sunni-led insurgent groups have killed several hundred Iraqis in the last two weeks with drive-by shootings, suicide car bombs and roadside bomb attacks aimed at wrecking the constitutional referendum.