Reports of arrests of purported ‘coup plotters’ in Iraq
December 18, 2008 Leave a comment
The New York Times is reporting that dozens of officials in Iraq’s Interior Ministry have been arrested while “in the early stages of planning a coup”. The arrestees, four of whom have the rank of General, have been detained during the past three days by “an elite counterterrorism force” controlled directly by the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. The paper cites “senior security officials in Baghdad” in claiming that many of those arrested were affiliated with Al Awda (The Return) an underground secular paramilitary group composed mostly of former Ba’ath members. This might explain why the arrested officials were “a mix of Sunnis and Shiites”, according to several sources, who also claimed that “huge amounts of money” had been confiscated during the raids. [IA]
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Iraq Interior Ministry ‘coup plotters’ ordered released
December 21, 2008 by intelNews Leave a comment
On December 18, The New York Times reported that dozens of pro-Ba’ath officials in Iraq’s Interior Ministry had been arrested while “in the early stages of planning a coup”. The arrestees, four of whom have the rank of General, had been detained by “an elite counterterrorism force” controlled directly by the office of Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. A day later, however, Iraq’s Minister of the Interior, Jawad al-Bolani, told the Associated Press that a judge had ordered the arrestees to be released, reportedly “after determining there was no evidence that they conspired to bring back Saddam Hussein’s banned Baath party”. Read more of this post
Filed under Expert news and commentary on intelligence, espionage, spies and spying Tagged with Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party (Iraq), Awda (Iraq), Iraq, Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, Jawad al-Bolani, News, Nuri al-Maliki