Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Arrest warrant issued for Sunni culture minister
Politics, Crime
(AP) - Iraqi authorities have issued an arrest warrant against the Sunni culture minister and raided his home on Tuesday after he was accused of ordering an assassination attempt against a secular Sunni politician more than two years ago, officials said.
A Sunni tribal sheik also was killed in a drive-by shooting in southwestern Baghdad, police said, the latest example in an increasingly violent internal Sunni power struggle. The attack occurred a day after a suicide bombing against a gathering of U.S.-allied tribal sheiks at a hotel in Baghdad.
Culture Minister Asad Kamal al-Hashimi, who was not home when the raid occurred, was identified by two suspected militants as the mastermind of a Feb. 8, 2005, ambush against then-parliamentary candidate Mithal al-Alusi, according to governmental spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh. Al-Alusi escaped unharmed but two of his sons were killed.
"The two who planned and carried out the killings of Mithal al-Alusi's two sons confessed that they took orders from him," al-Dabbagh said, adding that al-Hashimi was a mosque imam at the time but declining to elaborate further. Al-Hashimi was the first full Cabinet minister to face arrest, although Iraqi authorities have arrested other senior officials, including the deputy health minister who was linked to Shiite militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has promised not to let political or sectarian considerations stop him from cracking down on violence, but the arrest warrant against a prominent Sunni politician could prove another setback to efforts to bring the disaffected minority into the political process.
Al-Hashimi is not a member of parliament, but his party, the hardline Congress of the People of Iraq, condemned the arrest warrant, saying it was part of the "marginalizing policy against Sunni prominent leaders to push them away from the political process." The party warned the Shiite-dominated government to avoid "playing with fire by continuing the policy of fabricating lies to exclude Sunni politicians and officials from the Iraqi arena."
A Sunni tribal sheik also was killed in a drive-by shooting in southwestern Baghdad, police said, the latest example in an increasingly violent internal Sunni power struggle. The attack occurred a day after a suicide bombing against a gathering of U.S.-allied tribal sheiks at a hotel in Baghdad.
Culture Minister Asad Kamal al-Hashimi, who was not home when the raid occurred, was identified by two suspected militants as the mastermind of a Feb. 8, 2005, ambush against then-parliamentary candidate Mithal al-Alusi, according to governmental spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh. Al-Alusi escaped unharmed but two of his sons were killed.
"The two who planned and carried out the killings of Mithal al-Alusi's two sons confessed that they took orders from him," al-Dabbagh said, adding that al-Hashimi was a mosque imam at the time but declining to elaborate further. Al-Hashimi was the first full Cabinet minister to face arrest, although Iraqi authorities have arrested other senior officials, including the deputy health minister who was linked to Shiite militiamen loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr.
Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, has promised not to let political or sectarian considerations stop him from cracking down on violence, but the arrest warrant against a prominent Sunni politician could prove another setback to efforts to bring the disaffected minority into the political process.
Al-Hashimi is not a member of parliament, but his party, the hardline Congress of the People of Iraq, condemned the arrest warrant, saying it was part of the "marginalizing policy against Sunni prominent leaders to push them away from the political process." The party warned the Shiite-dominated government to avoid "playing with fire by continuing the policy of fabricating lies to exclude Sunni politicians and officials from the Iraqi arena."
Labels: Ali Al Dabbagh, arrest warrant, Asad Kamal al-Hashimi, Congress of the People of Iraq, Mithal al-Alusi
