Tuesday 20 December 2011

Iraq imposes travel ban on Sunni vice president

Update:

The Iraqi Interior Ministry is broadcasting the confessions of a cell accused for  Attempted assassination of Al-Maliki. Interior ministry announces the issuance of an arrest warrant for Tariq al-Hashimi, Vice President of the Republic, the Leader of Muslim brotherhood in Iraq.
 Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi (Left) with EX-PM Iyad Allawi
Published Monday, December 19, 2011

Iraq has banned Sunni Muslim Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi from leaving the country, a security source said on Monday, sharpening a sectarian-tinged political crisis just after the last US troops departed.*

The completion of the US withdrawal on Sunday ended nearly nine years of occupation, but left many Iraqis fearful that a shaky peace between majority Shia and Sunnis might collapse and reignite sectarian violence.

"We received the travel ban order for Hashemi," said a senior security official, adding that the ban had been issued by five judges investigating allegations against the Sunni leader.

Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shia, has also asked parliament for a no-confidence vote against another leading Sunni politician, Saleh al-Mutlaq, who is deputy prime minister, on the grounds that he lacked faith in the political process.

Hashemi and Mutlaq are both leaders of the Iraqiya bloc, a secular group backed by minority Sunnis, which joined Maliki's unity government only reluctantly and recently boycotted parliament sessions after complaining about being marginalized, even though it is the single biggest bloc in the assembly.

Security sources and lawmakers said on Sunday an arrest warrant had been issued for Hashemi, one of Iraq's two vice presidents, but that politicians had intervened to stop the arrest from being carried out.

Security sources, who asked not to be named, said the arrest warrant was issued after four of Hashemi's bodyguards, who were arrested two weeks ago, accused him of links with terrorism.

In a statement on Monday, Hashemi accused Maliki's government of "deliberate harassment" after his plane was delayed for three hours at Baghdad airport. He had been heading for the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya to meet the Iraqi president.

Security forces arrested three of Hashemi's bodyguards on their way back from the airport, the statement said. Military forces surrounding Hashemi's house for weeks had been beefed up.

"The vice president has been very patient and is waiting for a reasonable explanation from the government parties concerned," the statement said. "He is demanding the immediate release of the three officers who have been detained without judicial orders to arrest them."

The renewed political infighting has overshadowed the US withdrawal and dominated Iraqi newspaper headlines on Monday.

Fearing a deepening crisis that could push Iraq back into sectarian turmoil, senior Iraqi politicians were holding talks with Maliki and other leaders to contain the dispute.

The large-scale sectarian violence of 2006-07 has largely subsided, but tensions still simmer close to the surface, with many Sunnis feeling shunted aside by the rise of Shia power after the US-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003.
(Reuters, al-Akhbar)

*According to information received from Baghdad  Al-mutlaq, who left late to Oman, visited yesterday US Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman asked to mediate with Al-Maliki, who vowed to broadcast tapes, Iraq announced that it contained evidence implicating al-Hashimi to blow up Parliament and attempted to assassinate Al-Maliki, indicating the presence of three detainees confessed last charge, including a pair of his son al-Hashimi. Also, the movement of President Jalal Talabani in mediation to fix of Albin. Ibrahim Al-Jaafari and Mahmoud Al-Mashhadani sought to prevent the issuance of an arrest warrant against al-Hashimi, who fled to Erbil overnight after being prevented from leaving by road across the airport.
**Here, in the opinion of many, including Iraqi writer Saeb Khalil, a strong American smell in both what happened and will happen. According to Khalil the US intelligence stand behindthe trial to blow up Parliament by  to give the impression that the Sunni Arabs are targeted by attempt to assassinate Alnagifi  on one hand, and give the impression that Shiite Arabs a similar impression to being targeted by the attempt to assassinate Al-Maliki on the other hand,
Some believe that the occupation, through the creation of this environment, put Iraq under international trusteeship if the price of USA return would be enormous.
  
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

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