BAGHDAD - Iraqi troops detained a Sunni lawmaker sought on terrorism charges Saturday and killed his brother and five of his guards after they opened fire on the arresting officers. The clash also left one Iraqi soldier dead.
The arrested lawmaker, Ahmed al-Alwani, has been prominent among the organizers of Sunni protests against Iraq’s Shiite-led government during the past year. He is sought on terrorism charges for inciting violence against Shiites who came to power after the 2003 U.S.-led invasion that ended Saddam Hussein’s Sunni-led regime.
As military and security forces arrived at his home at dawn Saturday in the western city of Ramadi, al-Alwani’s guards and tribesmen opened fire, prompting a shootout that lasted nearly an hour, a police officer said. A spokesman of Iraq’s counterterrorism forces, Sameer al-Showaili, told the state TV that al-Alwani surrendered after he ran out of ammunition.
Along with those killed on the scene - al-Alwani’s brother, five guards and a soldier - 12 guards and five soldiers were also wounded in the shooting. Six other guards were arrested, the officer said. A medical official confirmed the casualty figures.
Al-Alwani’s parliamentary bloc, Iraqiya, demanded his release and denounced the arrest as politically motivated, saying it was intended to benefit the bloc’s rivals in next year’s national elections.
“The arrest of al-Alwani and the assassination of his brother are part of a campaign for the elections,” said Sunni lawmaker Salman al-Jumaili, who heads the bloc in the parliament. He said the Shiite-led government is “agitating sectarian tension regardless of the consequences on the future of the country.”
Since last December, Iraq’s Sunni minority has been staging protests against what they claim is second-class treatment from the Shiite majority.
The year-long Sunni protests have been coupled with a rising wave of insurgent attacks, and the government and some pro-government officials and tribal elders in Anbar have accused the protest groups of sheltering members of the local al-Qaida branch.
After an ambush in Anbar killed a senior military commander and six others, Iraqi security forces on Dec. 21 launched a military operation to chase down al-Qaida fighters in the province’s vast dessert.
In a statement posted Saturday on a militant website, Iraq’s al-Qaida branch, known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, claimed the military operation was not affecting its fighters and listed 16 purported attacks against Iraqi security forces in Anbar in the past few days.
Over the past few months, violence in Iraq has risen to levels not seen since 2008,. According to U.N. estimates, more than 8,000 people have been killed since the start of the year.
Three separate attacks killed eight people Saturday.
In one attack, a suicide car bomber hit an Iraqi army checkpoint outside of the northern city of Mosul, killing two soldiers and wounding three, a police official said. Later, three suicide attackers stormed into a nearby police station and killed two policemen and a civilian and wounded 12 people, he added.
In the former insurgent stronghold city of Fallujah, 40 miles west of Baghdad, a bomb hit a police patrol, killing an officer and his guard, another police officer said. Two other guards were wounded.
And a policeman was killed and five people were wounded when a bomb hit a patrol in the town of Haditha, about 140 miles northwest of the Iraqi capital, the same officer said.
All officials giving the details of Saturday’s arrest and attacks spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to media.
Information for this article was contributed by Qassim Abdul-Zahra of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 7 on 12/29/2013