Zealots try to revive Saddam's party

Published on Thursday 18 December 2008 21:10

MORE than 20 employees of Iraq's defence and interior ministries have been arrested on allegations that they were plotting to revive Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath Party.

Yassin Majid, a spokesman for the prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, said that 24 employees of the two ministries were arrested on suspicion of "facilitating activities for terrorists and outlaws and officials of the former regime".

Another security official put the figure at 25 and said a brigadier-general in the traffic police was the highest-ranking figure.

Iraq's 2005 constitution bans the Baath Party and any group that uses its symbols and ideology.

Some Iraqi politicians also expressed doubt that the plotters were actively trying to overthrow the government.

"I think talking about a coup is an exaggeration," Abbas al-Bayati, an MP of the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council, the largest Shiite party, told al-Arabiya television.

He described those arrested as "a semi-organised group", but said the fact that they were trying to restore the Baath Party pointed to shortcomings in Iraqi security in Baghdad.

Hadi al-Amiri, the head of the Iraqi parliament's security committee, said that "reports about a coup attempt are baseless. In fact, coups are usually carried out by the army and not by police."

Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish bloc MP, said he hoped "the move against those arrested is not politically motivated or aims at electoral gains".

The Baath Party ruled Iraq for 35 years until Saddam's fall in 2003.