On the eve of the parliament meeting, rebels ambushed and killed a Kurdish MP and wounded another north of Baghdad while another 11 Iraqis lost their lives in attacks on Sunday.

"We are handing the draft over to the UN," deputy parliamentary speaker Hussein Sharistani said after reading out five articles in the constitution that have been amended following talks between the ruling Shiites and Kurds and the minority Sunni Arabs.

The amendments to the text, adopted by parliament in late August, were agreed to following informal talks in an attempt to bring on board the disenchanted Sunni Arab minority which had objected to several key provisions.

Article 3 of the new draft has been amended to state that Iraq "is a founding and effective member of the Arab League" in an attempt to soothe the feelings of Sunni Arabs who originally had called for the country's identity to be described as 'Arab'. The minority Kurdish population objected to this.

A new article was added to create two deputy premier posts, while another amendment stipulated that the federal government would ensure an equitable distribution of water resources between the regions.

The draft will now be sent to the UN representatives tasked with printing five million copies - in Arabic and Kurdish - for distribution to the public ahead of the referendum.

"If everything goes well we will start printing the constitution tomorrow (Monday). It will take approximately 10 days to print it if nothing goes wrong," a UN official said.

Meanwhile, a Kurdish MP was shot dead in a road ambush on Saturday, the third lawmaker to be assassinated since the January 30 general elections.

Fares Naser Hussein was killed and his colleague Hayder Kasim Shenshu wounded in the attack in which their driver and a bodyguard also died, an interior ministry official said.

The ambush took place near Mushahadah, some 30 kilometres (18 miles) north of the capital, as the two members of the Kurdish list in parliament were heading towards Baghdad.

Seventy-five of parliament's 275 members were elected on the Kurdish list which includes Sunni Arabs, Turkmens and other minorities living in Kurdish regions and supports the government.

Sharistani condemned the attack and asked MPs to observe a one-minute silence in honour of their dead colleague.

Another 11 Iraqis, including eight members of the security forces, were killed in attacks on Sunday, officials said.

On Saturday, a series of anti-Shiite attacks continued with a car bomb ripping through a crowded market in a predominantly Shiite suburb of Baghdad, killing 30 people and wounding 38 others.

The bombing occurred as hundreds of thousands of Shiite pilgrims were headed south amid tight security towards the holy city of Karbala for ceremonies on Monday to mark the birth of their messiah.

Last week, Al-Qaeda's frontman in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi called for "all-out war" against Shiites and claimed responsibility for a spate of deadly bombings that left more than 200 Iraqi Shiites dead.

The deadliest attack came on Wednesday when a suicide car bomber blew himself up in a Baghdad square, killing some 112 Shiite day labourers as they waited to be hired for work.

On Friday, 11 Shiite worshippers were killed as they left weekly prayers in the town of Tuz Khurmatu in northern Iraq.

Insurgents also set off a blaze when they blew up a train carrying petroleum products in southern Baghdad, the second such attack in less than two months, an interior ministry official said.

A US soldier was killed by a bomb explosion Saturday near Al Asad in western Iraq, the US military said.

His death brings to at least 1,894 the number of American military personnel killed in Iraq since the US-led invasion of March 2003, according to an AFP count based on Pentagon figures.

Meanwhile, six insurgents were killed and four detained Sunday during house raids by US troops in the former rebel town of Tal Afar, the US military said.

Three more rebels were killed on Saturday in Tikrit, hometown of ousted dictator Saddam Hussein, when a home-made bomb they were attempting to plant blew up, the military added.

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