Yet another deadline has come and gone and the various factions in Iraq have failed to approve a draft of a constitution. In fact, the sides have not even announced a date to meet to discuss the document.
National Assembly's top spokesman, Bishro Ibrahim, announced that there would be no meeting Thursday night in Baghdad and that indeed no future discussions were even scheduled at this time. This means that the assembly failed to meet a self-imposed 72-hour-extension they granted from Monday's deadline.
According to published reports out of Baghdad, Sunni Muslims are still blocking a vote on the proposed draft of the constitution which was approved by Shi'ite and Kurdish legislators.
Elsewhere, violence continued between Shi'ite factions despite attempts by leaders to end it.
Radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr called for an end to bloodshed saying, 'I will not forget this attack on the office ... but Iraq is passing through a critical and difficult period that requires unity,' he told reporters in his home in Najaf.
However, al-Sadr also demanded that rival Shi'ite cleric Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim condemn 'what his followers have done.'
Violence between the two sects, which began on Wednesday, continued Thursday.
Al-Sadr supporters in Diwaniyah, 105 miles south of Baghdad, occupied parts of the city, setting up checkpoints and firing on police and rival groups, according to police Captain Hussein Hakim. Some residents evacuated their homes and headed to neighboring villages.
Meanwhile, SCIRI members torched a building belonging to al-Sadr's movement in the Baghdad suburb Nahrawan according to police reports.
In retaliation, al-Sadr's followers set fire to an office of SCIRI's Badr Brigade militia in Baghdad's heavily Shiite neighborhood of Sadr City.
Al-Sadr also spoke out against the draft constitution on the basis of his opposition to federalism.
'We reject federalism and if America has schemes, it should not try to implement those schemes,' al-Sadr said.
