BAGHDAD — The most powerful Sunni Muslim party in Iraq issued an angry statement Saturday accusing Americans of covering up the killing of an innocent member of the party.
The Iraqi Islamic Party of Vice President Tariq al Hashimi suspended all "official communication" with American military and civilian officials in Iraq Saturday until it receives an "explanation ... official apology ... and a vow to stop the campaign of harassment against the party."
The statement followed an incident Friday in which U.S. and Iraqi forces raided a home six miles west of Fallujah in predominantly Sunni Anbar province, detained one man and killed another. The Islamic Party accused the American military of detaining five innocent members of the party and killing Sajed Yasseen Hameed, 44, "in his bed in cold blood."
The U.S. military said in a statement that the raid was conducted based on a Ministry of Interior warrant for a member of the Hamas al Iraq insurgent group. When troops raided the home, an armed man shot at them and they returned fire, the statement said. The Iraqi Army found homemade bombs, a detonation cord and blasting caps in the room where the man was arrested, the statement said.
"The individual detained on 24 October was a leader of Hamas al Iraq. The arrest was conducted under Iraqi authority by the Iraqi Army with Coalition forces in support," Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, said in an e-mail. "The evidence of an explosives cache found in the suspect's room certainly indicates that this person was involved in terrorist activity, not political activity."
Hamas al Iraq is an offshoot of the 1920 Revolution Brigade, a Sunni insurgent group, and both groups consider themselves part of the resistance against foreign occupation. Some members of both groups, however, have negotiated with the Americans, and many have joined the U.S.-backed mostly Sunni militias known as the Sons of Iraq.
The Iraqi Islamic Party, in danger of losing power to the growing, U.S.-backed Awakening council in Anbar provincial elections, accused the Americans of acting on false information and targeting the party.
Also Saturday, about 300 Shiites rallied in the southern city of Basra against a U.S.-Iraqi security pact currently under negotiation.
The demonstrators were members of a local Muslim charity linked to Iraq's largest Shiite political party, the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, or SIIC.
The council has not decided whether to support the security agreement, and its decision will be crucial in determining whether it wins parliamentary approval. Critics oppose the pact as an infringement of national sovereignty.
Leila Fadel is the Baghdad bureau chief for McClatchy Newspapers.
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