BAGHDAD, Oct 22 (AFP) - 21h28 - ArabLeague chief Amr Mussa made two landmark visits in Iraq Saturday toraise support for a proposed national reconciliation conference, whilethe toll of US deaths grew to nearly 2,000.

Mussa,on his first trip to Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003,said he had won crucial backing from Shiite spiritual leader GrandAyatollah Ali al-Sistani for a planned attempt to reconcile Iraq'sdivided communities.

Thehead of the 22-member Arab League then flew to the Kurdish city ofArbil in northern Iraq for an historic visit with regional presidentMassoud Barzani that marked Arab League recognition of the Kurdishautonomous region.

"Wehave always understood the Kurdish people's ambitions," Mussa told apress conference in Arbil. He planned to spend the night among theKurds and attend a session of their regional parliament on Sunday.

Mussahad previously met with the preeminent Sunni religious body, theCommittee of Muslim Scholars, and several members of the government inBaghdad.

Shiiteradical leader Moqtada al-Sadr rejected Mussa's overtures, however,continuing to insist the League clearly condemn insurgent attacksbefore he would talk with the pan-Arab body, which wants to hold apreparatory conference in Cairo on November 15 ahead of full talks inIraq.

Meanwhile, theUS military announced that four soldiers had died Friday in variousattacks, bringing the overall toll since the US-led invasion of March2003 to 1,991 according to an AFP tally based on Pentagon figures.

Coalitionforces killed 20 people suspected of links to Iraq's most wanted man,Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and his Al-Qaeda movement during raids onsuspected safe houses near the Syrian border, the US military said.

TenIraqis, including seven members of Iraqi security forces, were killedin various other attacks in the country, security sources said.

InBaghdad, Iraqi electoral officials released partial results of lastweek's vote on a draft constitution, while counting continued for thelast five provinces.

Votersin only one province have rejected the draft charter by a potentiallyblocking two-thirds majority, according to the figures, but twoprovinces with large Sunni Arab populations, among whom opposition tothe text runs high, are among those that have yet to return theirresults.

Under rulesfor the October 15 referendum, the constitution fails if it is rejectedby a two-thirds majority in any three of Iraq's 18 provinces, thoughthat still appeared unlikely.

In Salaheddin province, based on Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, 81.5 percent of voters rejected the text.

Thecommission said the remaining five provinces -- Al-Anbar, Arbil, Babel,Basra and Nineveh -- would release their results in the next few days.

Triballeaders meanwhile blamed forces within the government for the murder ofone of the defence lawyers in the trial of ousted president SaddamHussein and seven co-defendants.

SadunJanabi, attorney for Awad Hamad al-Bandar al-Sadun, a former deputyhead of Saddam's office, was seized in his office late Thursday bygunmen wearing police and army uniforms.

"Wehave proof coming from the interior ministry showing that those whoperpetrated the assassination are interior ministry members," one ofthe sheikhs, Hamid Faraj al-Janabi, told AFP.

TheNew York-based Human Rights Watch warned that Janabi's murderthreatened "to discourage lawyers from vigorously representingdefendants at the court, further undermining the defendants' right to afair trial".

But asenior interior ministry official told AFP: "The ministry is ready toensure without conditions the protection of any lawyer or other person"connected with the trial.

Prime Minister Ibrahim Jaafari rejected calls from defence counsel for the trial to be moved abroad on security grounds.

"Theprocess is a purely Iraqi affair which should take place on the (Iraqi)territory, it is out of the question to transfer it anywhere else,"Jaafari said.

Sadun,Saddam and their co-defendants all pleaded not guilty to charges ofcrimes against humanity for the killing of 148 Shiite villagers in massreprisals following a botched 1982 assassination attempt.

IraqiPresident Jalal Talabani, a veteran opponent of the death penalty, saidhe would not stand in the way of its use against Saddam, even though hewould not sign the warrant himself.

"Iwill not sign, neither his sentence nor that of anybody else," Talabanitold the Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera, adding that they couldstill be signed by his two vice presidents.