been killed in a series of devastating attacks against the Shia community as they marked Ashura on 2 March, the holiest event in their calendar. The US-led authorities are pointing the finger at a senior figure in the Al-Qaeda network but many Iraqis blamed the Americans for failing to prevent the bombings. The disaster overshadowed the agreement by the interim governing council on a temporary constitution - a rare success story in the process of political transition.

Co-ordinated suicide and mortar attacks struck the packed holy city of Karbala and a shrine in the Kadamiya suburb of Baghdad early in the morning, as thousands of Shia worshippers took advantage of Saddam Hussein's fall to commemorate Ashura publicly for the first time in 27 years. The scenes of carnage were broadcast live across the Arab world. Polish troops, in charge of policing Karbala and its environs, had largely withdrawn from the town as a mark of respect, leaving Shia militia to maintain security. Many Iraqis had voiced concerns ahead of the gathering that the event would provide a perfect target for attackers.

As with other recent bombings, suspicion has fallen on either Sunni supporters of the former regime or foreign Islamist militants. Washington has plumped for the latter. Head of US Central Command John Abizaid told a congressional committee on 3 March that intelligence linked the attacks to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian national suspected of being a leading member of the Al-Qaeda network. US officials have already voiced fears that Al-Zarqawi has entered Iraq to direct resistance to US forces and their allies. Abizaid warned that evidence suggested Al-Zarqawi was developing links between foreign militants and diehard members of the Baathist regime. 'We are concerned to see a terrorist group come into close co-ordination with former Iraqi intelligence service people,' he said, adding that the co-ordinated nature of the Karbala and Baghdad attacks bore the hallmarks of Al-Zarqawi's methods. In February, Washington announced the interception of a letter, purportedly from the Jordanian, calling on adherents to stoke sectarian tension between the Shia and Sunni communities with the aim of destabilising the country.

On the day the bombings took place, members of the governing council were due to sign a fundamental law to serve as an interim constitution, agreed on the day before. The ceremony was postponed during three days of mourning declared by the council. The compromise text emerged from an all-night session of the 25-member body, tackling such thorny issues as federalism and the role of Islam in national law. 'The debate was political, sometimes religious and sometimes ideological, but always pragmatic,' reported Jeremy Greenstock, the leading UK representative on the Coalition Provisional Authority. Islam is defined as Iraq's official religion and one, but not the only, source of legislation. Federalism is enshrined as a strong principle, and elections are to take place no later than 31 January 2005. The full text has yet to be published.

Several of the most controversial questions were sidestepped, among them the future of militias such as the Kurdish peshmerga, and Kurdish claims to land and resources in the area around Mosul and Kirkuk. The explicit avoidance of the latter highlights the multiple potential ethnic tensions on which a future government will have to keep a lid.