Baghdad – Iraqi commandos raided a Sunni Cabinet member’s home Tuesday after a warrant was issued for his arrest, outraging Sunni politicians and jeopardizing U.S.- backed reconciliation efforts in the Shiite-led government.
The move against Culture Minister Asad Kamal al-Hashimi came after he was identified by two suspected militants as the mastermind of a Feb. 8, 2005, ambush against secular politician Mithal al-Alusi, a government spokesman said. 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,” Ali al-Dabbagh said. The spokesman said al-Hashimi was a mosque imam at the time.
Al-Hashimi was not at home when the security forces staged the predawn raid and detained about 40 of his guards.
Muhanad al-Essawi, a spokesman for the main Sunni parliamentary bloc, said al-Hashimi, the first serving Cabinet minister to face arrest, was being kept in an undisclosed safe place in Baghdad and that Sunni politicians were asking the government to close the case. The deputy health minister was arrested in February for alleged ties to Shiite militiamen.
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 move threatened to set back efforts to bring the disaffected Sunni minority into the political process, a step the U.S. says is key to stemming support for the insurgency and enabling American troops to go home.
Al-Hashimi’s party, the Congress of the People of Iraq, condemned the arrest warrant and warned the government to avoid “playing with fire” by “fabricating lies to exclude Sunni politicians and officials from the Iraqi arena.”
A government official said the warrant was issued after the culture minister failed to respond to a summons by judicial authorities two days ago.
The Sunni community, dominant under Saddam Hussein, has been struggling for a greater role in government. At the same time, hard-line Sunni insurgent groups have been targeting Sunnis who want to join the political process.
A Sunni sheik, Hamid Abdul Farhan al-Shujairi, was gunned down Tuesday in a mainly Sunni area of Baghdad, police said. A member of his tribe, Akram al-Shujairi, said the sheik had attended a conference several weeks ago on helping the government and fighting al-Qaeda.
The attack occurred one day after a suicide bomber slipped into the busy Mansour Hotel in Baghdad and blew himself up, killing as many as six tribal leaders who oppose al-Qaeda.
