35 Iraqi officials held for ‘reviving’ Saddam party

The involvement of the counter-terrorism unit speaks to the seriousness of the accusations, and several officials from the Ministries of the Interior and National Security said that some of those arrested were in the early stages of planning a coup.

The arrests reflect a new set of political challenges for Iraq. Maliki, who has gained popularity as a strong leader but has few reliable political allies, has scrambled to protect himself from domestic rivals as the domineering influence of the United States, his leading backer, begins to fade.

Rumours of coups, conspiracies and new alliances abound in the Iraqi capital a month before provincial elections. Critics of Maliki say he has been using arrests to consolidate power. But senior security officials said there was significant evidence tying those arrested to a wide array of political corruption charges, including affiliation with Al Awda, a descendant of the Baath Party, which ruled the country as a dictatorship for 35 years, mostly under Saddam.

While most members of the Baath Party were Sunni Muslims, those arrested were a mix of Sunnis and Shiites, several officials said. It was unclear precisely how many Interior Ministry officials were detained.

A high-ranking Interior Ministry official said that those affiliated with Al Awda had paid bribes to other officers to recruit them and that huge amounts of money had been found in raids. He said there could be more arrests. Some of those under arrest belonged to the now-illegal party under Saddam’s government. Maliki’s office declined to comment. But one of his advisers said the detainees were involved in “a conspiracy”.

Interior Minister Jawad Kadem al-Bolani has his own political ambitions and has been expanding his secular Iraqi Constitutional Party. Iraq is a nation where leadership has often changed by coup, and as next month’s provincial elections approach, worry about violence is increasing. So are accusations about politically charged detentions.