BAGHDAD, 6 October 2005 — Iraq’s Parliament yesterday bowed to UN and US pressure by reversing changes to the rules of next week’s referendum that critics deemed were unfair to opponents of the divisive new constitution.

The change of mind came as at least 25 people were killed when a suicide bomber exploded his charge at a mosque south of Baghdad as Iraqi Shiites gathered to break their day-long fast on the first day of Ramadan.

The constitution will now be approved if a simple majority of all those who turn out to vote say “yes” and if two-thirds of voters in at least three provinces do not say “no.” The move was approved by 119 of the 147 MPs present.

Sunday’s change had said two thirds of “registered voters” would be required in three provinces to block the charter, but the new decision has changed this back to read just “voters.”

This was seen as lessening the chances for the increasingly alienated Sunni Arab minority to vote down the charter.

Many Sunnis object to it on the grounds that its federalist principles will pave the way for the break-up of the country, handing over oil-rich provinces to Kurds and Shiites.

The charter has caused deep divisions between the Sunnis and the rival majority Shiites and their Kurdish allies who now dominate Parliament.

The parliamentary U-turn “is a good decision because the changes were not correct. Unfortunately the deputies sent the wrong message to the electorate by trying to cheat on the text,” said Salah Motlak of the National Dialogue Party, a Sunni group.

The once all-powerful Sunnis, who are believed to form the backbone of the ongoing insurgency, might have enough registered voters in three provinces to torpedo the constitution, though many have called for a boycott of the vote.

Al-Qaeda’s Iraq branch, headed by Iraq’s most wanted man Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, has also urged Sunnis to boycott the referendum.

The vote on the constitution is a key stage in the country’s political transition following the ouster of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein by US-led forces in April 2003. It is also being held four days before Saddam Hussein and seven of his former henchmen are due to go on trial over a massacre of Shiite villagers in 1982. They face the death penalty if convicted.

However a senior British official, speaking on condition of anonymity in London, said Saddam’s trial may be postponed until after December elections in Iraq — not for political reasons but practical ones.

For example bullet proof screens and witness protection programs had to be provided, he said. “I think there are some logistical problems. There are a lot of things they haven’t got round to yet.” The US general commanding troops in the Iraqi capital, William Webster, also warned that insurgents would increase attacks in Baghdad ahead of the referendum in a bid to discredit both the government and the political process.

“We believe that the insurgents will try to make a surge in their attacks inside Baghdad because of its value in trying to convince the people that this government cannot protect them and also in terms of trying to make the results of the election illegitimate,” he said.

The latest anti-Shiite attack — one of more than a dozen in the past fortnight — targeted men praying in Hilla, some 100 kilometers (60 miles) south of the capital, a town hit Friday by another car bomb which killed at least 10 in a vegetable market.

According to a police official from Hilla, a suicide bomber detonated a belt packed with explosives when he entered a mosque after dusk in the center of the town.

“Many dead and wounded have been pulled out of the rubble and there are 25 dead and 87 wounded. The search is continuing,” said an official of the rescue services for Babil province. Ten people were killed in other attacks across Iraq.

An insurgent group linked to Al-Qaeda posted an Internet video yesterday of the beheading of two Iraqis it said had served as “spies” for the US military.

Meanwhile, the United States pressed on with its latest bid to root out insurgents in volatile western Iraq, saying it had killed 42 insurgents so far in a series of assaults.