Iraqi soldiers threaten to kill Sunni leader-party

BAGHDAD, Aug 23 (Reuters) Iraqi soldiers have threatened to kill one of Iraq's senior Sunni Arab political leaders this week, his political bloc said today.

The Accordance Front, the biggest Sunni Arab bloc in parliament, said soldiers from the 30th Brigade of the Iraqi Army's 5th Division arrived at the offices of the Front's leader, Adnan al-Dulaimi, in western Baghdad yesterday.

The Front, which triggered a crisis this month by withdrawing its six ministers from Iraq's Shi'ite-led government, said in a statement that the soldiers had first threatened Dulaimi's security guards.

It quoted their commander, identified only as Colonel Raheem, as saying: ''We will cut off the head of Adnan al-Dulaimi and your heads, and we will blow up this office and your houses.'' No comment was available from either the Iraqi military or the Defence Ministry.

Iraq's security forces are often accused of being pro-Shi'ite and infiltrated by Shi'ite militias.

Dulaimi warned in an open letter 10 days ago that Iran was sponsoring Shi'ite death squads and plotting genocide against Iraq's minority Sunni Arabs in an ethnic conflict that would spread throughout the Arab-speaking world.

Washington accuses predominantly Shi'ite Iran of providing weapons and training to Shi'ite militias in Iraq. Tehran denies the accusations and blames the US-led invasion in 2003 for the sectarian violence that has killed tens of thousands of Iraqis.

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