Global media is reporting that an Iraqi investigative committee issued an arrest warrant Monday for Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who is accused of orchestrating bombing attacks. According to a CNN report:
(CNN) — An Iraqi investigative committee issued an arrest warrant Monday for Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, who is accused of orchestrating bombing attacks. The committee of five judges issued the warrant under Article 4 of the country’s anti-terrorism law. The Interior Ministry, at a news conference, showed what it called confession videos from people identified as security guards for al-Hashimi, the country’s Sunni vice president. In the videos, the men described various occasions in which they purportedly carried out attacks under direct orders from al-Hashimi. One man said he carried out assassination attempts using roadside bombs and guns with silencers. He said the orders came from the vice president and at times through the director of his office. CNN could not immediately confirm that the men in the videos were bodyguards for al-Hashimi. Three of the vice president’s security guards were detained earlier this month. Al-Hashimi’s office did not answer calls from CNN Monday. Over the past few days, the office told CNN it feared that al-Hashimi’s three guards would be forced to make false confessions. Ali al-Mussawi, media adviser to Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said over the weekend that confessions would link the Sunni vice president to bombings. The arrest warrant Monday comes amid a political crisis in Baghdad that erupted just as the last U.S. soldiers exited Iraq over the weekend. Iraqiya, a powerful political bloc that draws support largely from Sunni and more secular Iraqis, said it was boycotting Parliament, a move that threatens to shatter Iraq’s fragile power-sharing government. The move pits the largely Sunni and secular coalition against the government of Shiite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Iraqiya contends al-Maliki is trying to amass dictatorial power, and many believe al-Maliki was simply waiting for the Americans to leave before making his move. Kurdish Lawmaker Mahmoud Othman said Monday, “I hope there wasn’t a political influence in this arrest warrant, but in Iraq there has been always a political influence.” “This is very upsetting and confusing” Othman said, adding that if the accusations are true then al-Hashimi “should be brought to justice.” CNN’s Joamana Karadsheh contribute”
In 2009, a previous post had reported that Tariq al-Hashimi had said that he was quitting the Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP) and forming a new party.
The IIP is strongly tied to the global Muslim Brotherhood. According to a profile posted on globalsecurity.org:
The Iraqi Islamic Party (IIP), established in 1960, is the major Sunni political organization in the country …The party was suppressed during the regime of former President Saddam Hussein. Many of its members were forced to flee the country. The party returned to public life after coalition forces occupied Iraq. The IIP seeks to preserve the leading role Sunnis have had in running the country starting with the establishment of the modern Iraqi state in the beginning of the 20th century. The Iraqi Islamic Party was formed as an Iraqi Muslim Brotherhood organization, and conducted underground work during the Baathist period. Thee party does not considers itself a branch of the Muslim Brotherhood Group, established in Egypt in 1994, nor a political front for it in Iraq. The Iraqi Islamic Party acknowledges strong ties to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood through political and intellectual alliances.
Another 2009 post reported that Osama al-Tikriti, the father of U.K Muslim Brotherhood leader Anas al-Tikriti, was elected as the new secretary general of the IIP.