Iraqi politician’s office is hit in U.S. raid

U.S. forces attacked the office of a Sunni Arab lawmaker in the Iraqi capital Monday morning while conducting a raid on a suspected Al Qaeda safe house next door. Six people were killed.

Saleh Mutlak, a member of the Iraqi National Dialogue Council, a Sunni slate that includes former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party, was not in his office in the Jadriya neighborhood at the time. But he spoke with witnesses and said that the troops killed six civilians: two of his bodyguards, a couple next door and their two children.

Troops came under such heavy fire from guns and grenades as they approached the two buildings that they called in warplanes to attack the target with machine guns, according to a U.S. military statement. Two suspected militants were killed as Americans approached and four more during the raid, the statement said, adding that one person was detained.

U.S. Army spokesman Lt. Col. Christopher Garver said Mutlak’s office was not targeted, and that troops returned fire only after people in the building started shooting at them.

“They jumped in on a fight that was not targeted at them initially,” he said of Mutlak’s staff.

Garver could not provide the ages of those killed because troops did not enter the buildings or recover the bodies.

“Everyone who was shot was engaged in trying to shoot us,” Garver said.

Television footage of the site showed stone buildings with walls blasted off, twisted metal gates and entrances blocked by rubble.

Mutlak, who was in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, said his staff had called him from the office at 3 a.m. to say militia members were firing on them. Moments later, they called again to say their attackers were U.S. troops. The lawmaker immediately called the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, but got voicemail. He left a message, but said he still had not heard back by Monday night.

The U.S. Embassy was investigating the incident, spokesman Lou Fintor said late in the day.

“This has got to stop,” Mutlak said. “We cannot stand it anymore. How can they bomb my office? I am in complete dialogue with them.

“They didn’t even call to apologize,” he said.

Mutlak said Al Qaeda fighters were responsible for the death of his brother, Taha, who was kidnapped and shot last spring, and that his party opposed sectarian militias. His office has been searched by the Iraqi Defense Ministry and attacked by Shiite militias.

“This is a disaster,” Mutlak said of the raid. “If my guards are considered Al Qaeda, we are in trouble.”

The Sunni politician charged that American forces and the Iraqi government were giving Shiite Muslim militias carte blanche while cracking down on Sunnis. He was still seething after watching videotape of Hussein’s execution Saturday, at which guards taunted the deposed president with Shiite militia chants.

Mutlak said he planned to meet with fellow Sunnis and members of various parliamentary blocs this week to discuss withdrawing from the government, which is led by Prime Minister Nouri Maliki, a Shiite.

“Participating in the parliament with all that’s happening now would be a shame on me, to be part of this history,” he said.

The Muslim Scholars Assn., a hard-line Sunni group, released a statement Monday condemning Hussein’s execution as “vulgar” and orchestrated by American “invaders and some of their allies.”

“The whole thing is political and not taking into consideration the interests of the Iraqi masses,” the statement said. “We are looking forward to the day when our people and not the invader execute and bring about justice for those who kill our people, rob our resources, violate our rights and sell our sovereignty.”

More moderate Sunni politicians also said they were upset by the way the country’s leaders handled the execution.

Ala Maki, a member of the Iraqi Islamic Party slate whom Hussein jailed and almost executed, said the former president’s hanging was rushed and poorly timed and that Maliki should compensate by cracking down on Shiite militias.

Some Shiite politicians acknowledged that the crowd at Hussein’s execution had been larger than expected and had gotten out of hand.

Only seven people were supposed to attend the hanging at the former military intelligence headquarters in Baghdad, but more police and guards showed up, swelling the crowd, according to Abbas Bayati, a Shiite politician with close ties to Maliki. He said some in the crowd had “spontaneously released” sectarian chants, to the dismay of organizers, but that overall the execution had gone smoothly.

“We can’t say it was 100% the way it was planned,” he said. “By the end, the law was implemented, and that’s what’s important. The state cannot control the small details 100%.”

Bayati said the guards would be held accountable for their conduct. An advisor to Maliki, Sami Askari, told Reuters news service that the government was investigating the guards and how they managed to smuggle camera cellphones into the execution room.

Hussein’s exiled daughter, Raghad, on Monday joined supporters of the former president at a protest in Amman, Jordan, Iraqi television networks reported. She was unable to travel to Iraq, where she is wanted by authorities.

Similar protests were held Monday in Baghdad’s mostly Sunni Adhamiya neighborhood and Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit, drawing several hundred people.

Meanwhile, 40 unidentified bodies were recovered in Baghdad during a 24-hour period that ended late Monday.

Near the northern city of Mosul, a visitor to the prison in Badush incited a riot during which police killed an inmate, said Lt. Col. Ali Mahmood, the warden.

Ibrahim Abdullah, 44, coach of the Iraqi wheelchair basketball team and a father of three, was killed in a drive-by shooting in west Baghdad, said Saif Maliki, a member of the Sports Journalists Guild.

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molly.hennessy-fiske@latimes.com

Times staff writer Saif Hameed and a special correspondent in Baghdad contributed to this report.