BAGHDAD — Iraqi authorities have arrested up to 35 police officials in recent days, accusing them of conspiring against the government, officials in the Interior Ministry said today.
The men are accused of belonging to Al Awda, or the Return, an offshoot of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party that has been active in the country's insurgency. As many as six generals in the Interior Ministry were detained in the raids, the officials said.
The police officials said the raids were carried out by a special Baghdad army unit that reports back to the office of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and is based in the Green Zone, the fortified enclave of the Iraqi government in Baghdad.
Western officials have described Maliki, a religious Shiite, as deeply suspicious of a coup by Iraqi security officers, many of whom are secular and nostalgic for the old Iraqi army. The prime minister has long sought to consolidate his power and control of the army and police. All security forces now report back to his office.
In the past, Shiite political parties have used the allegations of membership in the Baath Party to purge senior Iraqi officers from the Interior and Defense ministries. Many of those expulsions have been considered cover to settle political or personal scores.
The reports of the raids came as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Wednesday that his nation's forces would withdraw from Iraq by the end of July, leaving the United States as the only major foreign military presence in the country.
The British withdrawal of its remaining 4,100 troops had been long expected. The forces will cease operations by May 31 to begin their exit. Britain might later send soldiers to train Iraqi forces if the Iraqi government requests it.
At least 178 British troops have died in Iraq since the March 2003 U.S.-led invasion. The British presence has grown increasingly unpopular at home, becoming a liability to the Labor Party under Brown's predecessor, Tony Blair.
When Brown became prime minister in 2007, he made it clear that he planned to greatly reduce the number of British troops in Iraq. His initial plan, to bring the number down to about 2,500 by the end of last year and to withdraw completely by the end of 2008, stalled after an Iraqi army offensive prompted major clashes with Shiite Muslim militias last spring in the southern city of Basra, where the British contingent is based.
