Iraq issued an arrest warrant for its Sunni vice president Monday in an anti-terror case, deepening a crisis that one of the country's leaders warned could force the collapse of the unity government. Barely a day after American forces completed their withdrawal from the country, Iraq's fragile political truce was unravelling, with Tareq al-Hashemi wanted, and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki calling for the sacking of one of his deputies, a Sunni who belongs to the same bloc as Hashemi.
Hashemi's Iraqiya bloc has said it is boycotting parliament to protest Maliki's monopolising of power in the government, which Massud Barzani, president of Iraq's autonomous northern Kurdish region, has warned is under threat. "According to article four of the anti-terrorism law, an arrest warrant has been issued against Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi and it is signed by five judges," Major General Kamal Hussein, a senior interior ministry official, said at a news conference.
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