DAR AL ISLAM - IRAQ: IS MALIKI'S FRAGILE COALITION GOVERNMENT ABOUT TO GO BUST?!?

Sunni bloc in Iraq boycotts government

BAGHDAD: Embattled Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s national reconciliation programme suffered a major blow yesterday as the key Sunni Arab bloc ordered its six ministers to quit his government.

In protest at an arrest warrant issued against one of its ministers, Sunni lawmaker Omar Abdul-Sattar Mahmud said the National Concord Front will request that its ministers suspend their participation in Maliki’s cabinet.

“The National Concord Front demanded that its members in the cabinet suspend their participation until the government meets their demands,” he said.

“With all respect to the judicial system, we condemn the unfair warrant, we demand that the case be investigated further, that the minister’s reputation be restored, and that the security forces be punished,” he said.

An Iraqi court has issued an arrest warrant for Culture Minister Asaad Kamal al-Hashemi for allegedly masterminding an attack on fellow Sunni MP Mithal Alussi in February 2005.

Alussi escaped the ambush in Baghdad but his two sons were killed.

On Tuesday, Iraqi forces raided Hashemi’s house and detained dozens of his bodyguards.

Alussi, an independent lawmaker, said the warrant issued was for “terrorist activities” including the slaying of his sons, and that two gunmen detained for the murder had confessed to launching the ambush on Hashemi’s orders.

The Front’s move comes at a time when US and Iraqi forces are carrying out a massive security crackdown in Baghdad in a bid to provide political space for Maliki to step up his reconciliation efforts.

Maliki is under pressure to quell the raging Sunni insurgency by winning the trust of the disenchanted former elite.

An MP from the Shia United Iraqi Alliance considered close to Maliki rejected the Sunni bloc’s charges and insisted that Hashemi’s case was a purely judicial matter.

“They are proclaiming the minister’s innocence in spite of all the evidence that has been presented in the case,” Sami al-Askari said in an interview with Al Hurra television.

“The problem we are confronting is that there are some parties in the government and the parliament that are trying to bring down the government and hinder its work.”

Askari said he believed Hashemi, who has been on the run and is believed to be hiding in the Green Zone, was being sheltered by the US government. The US embassy has said it has no involvement in the case.

The defection of the Sunni ministers comes as a hard blow to Maliki’s fragile coalition, which is under pressure from Washington to pass benchmark legislation aimed at healing Iraq’s myriad internal conflicts.

Parliament is currently discussing major legislation on the distribution of oil revenues, the revision of the country’s de-Baathification policies and amendments to the constitution.

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