50 Iraqi officials arrested over coup plot against prime minister

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BAGHDAD, Dec 18 (AFP): Iraq has arrested about 50 interior ministry officials for plotting a coup against the Shiite-led government, a senior Iraqi security official said Thursday.
"Fifty interior ministry civil servants, including senior officials, were arrested over the past three days for trying to topple the government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Among those seized was General Ahmad Abul Rif, the ministry's security chief, he said.
"They were linked to the Al-Awda (The Return), a clandestine group that was working to bring the Baath Party back into power," he said.
Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein and his Baath Party were ousted in the US-led invasion of March 2003.
The arrests at the interior ministry over the past three days were carried out by an elite counter-terrorism force that reports directly to Maliki, the New York Times reported on its website.
Those arrested are both Sunnis and Shias, including the general who led the ministry's internal affairs department and another who dealt with internal security inside the ministry, which oversees the country's police and other security services. At least 17 members of the traffic police were also held, including the general who leads the department, unnamed officials said.
According to some accounts, the arrests stemmed from alleged corruption involving the issuing of fake documents and car licence plates, but other officials said they arose from a plot to resurrect al-Awda (the Return), a party composed of Saddam's loyalists from the Ba'ath party that was banned by the government after the US invasion in 2003.
"It's a political group to resist against the government," an interior ministry officer was quoted as saying.
Baghdad has been awash with rumours of coups, conspiracies and new alliances a month before provincial elections. Maliki's critics have accused him of using the arrests to consolidate power.
But senior security officials said there was significant evidence tying those arrested to a wide array of political corruption charges. A high-ranking interior ministry official told the New York Times 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 Hussein. One of Maliki's advisers said the detainees were involved in "a conspiracy".
Iraq's interior ministry deals with Iraq's internal security and includes the police forces. The ministry has a history of being heavily infiltrated with Shia militias, though it has improved considerably over the past two years.
A police officer who knows several of the detainees said they were innocent, longstanding civil servants and had little in common with one another. Those who once belonged to the Ba'ath Party were lower-level members, he said. The officer insisted the arrests were politically motivated.
The interior minister, Jawad Kadem al-Bolani, who has not been implicated and is out of the country, has his own political ambitions and has been expanding his secular Iraqi constitutional party.