Hundreds of protesters call for US withdrawal from Iraq as they take part in the funeral of an assassinated lawmaker loyal to Sadr group.

The supporters called for ending the US presence in the oil-rich country while shouting anti-US slogans and torching American and Israeli flags in Baghdad.

"Americans get out. Americans get out," shouted protesters.

Saleh Auqaeili, who was a senior member of the Sadr political bloc in Iraqi parliament, died of injuries in hospital after he was wounded seriously in a bomb attack near Baghdad's Sadr City on Thursday.

Auqaeili, who was a key figure in negotiations with the government on the controversial US-Iraq security pact and opposed signing the deal, was buried in the holy shrine city of Najaf on Friday.

Iraqi Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Friday blamed the United States for Auqaeili's assassination and said Auqaeili had been a vociferous critic of the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA).

"The martyr gave most of his time to eject the occupiers ... And for this reason the hand of the hateful occupation and terrorism killed him", Sadr said in a statement.

"What happened indicates that the occupation (US forces) was behind the attack," said Sheikh Salah al Obeidi, a spokesman for the Sadr movement.

"He has criticized severely the weakest points in the (US) agreement which led to the embarrassment of the Americans," Obeidi told AFP in Najaf. "So we see that it was in their interest to get rid of Auqaeili."

Meanwhile, the US military denied any involvement in Auqaeili's killing and US ambassador in Baghdad, Ryan Crocker, and General Raymond Odierno, the commander of US forces in Iraq, condemned the assassination.

Special UN representative for Iraq, Staffan de Mistura, denounced the murder in a statement calling it an "outrageous crime aimed at perpetuating instability in Iraq."

Supporters of the anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's party called for nationwide "demonstrations" on October 18 to protest the assassination.

Though Iraqi President Jalal Talabani says that the US had made 'good concessions' on the security pact, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki described the immunity of the US troops and civilians in Iraq as one of the points of contention yet to be worked out.

On Friday, Maliki met with Iraq's most revered religious leader Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the holy city of Najaf to discuss the issue.

The Ayatollah reportedly did not object to the government's negotiations, but cautioned that the final agreement needed to be approved by constitutional institutes namely government and parliament. Most members of the Parliament are said to be opposed to the deal.

But the two sides, according to Maliki, have agreed that the US troops will withdraw from cities by the end of next June, and leave Iraq by Dec. 31, 2011.

Washington which has been trying to persuade Baghdad into signing the deal has yet failed to do so. The deal is to grant the US troops legal status to stay in Iraq after the UN mandate expires at the end of this year.

According to Iraqi web site al-Morsad, US 'has threatened' to topple the Maliki's government if he refuses to sign SOFA.

The source said that US Deputy Secretary of State, John Negroponte warned al-Maliki that he had to sign the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) with the United States or he will be ousted

Earlier before the assassination of the Sadr lawmaker the block said, US Negroponte's surprise visit to Iraq was aimed at putting Iraqi officials under pressure to sign the deal which many Iraqis believe would violate Iraq's sovereignty.

MSH/DT