Coup against Maliki Gov’t Fails

Iraq’s security forces have foiled a foreign-led plot to topple Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki’s government, the country’s media reported on Sunday.

Iraq’s Arabic-language daily, al-Dastour, reported on Sunday that Baghdad has witnessed increased operations and presence of security forces in the last two days and all the military personnel have been called to stay on the alert for an unspecified period of time.

The security measures were intensified after a high-ranking Iraqi security official warned of an imminent coup d’ ‘tat against Maliki’s government orchestrated by the spying agency of a regional Arab state.

“One of the regional states had worked out a coup d’etat through talks with former Iraqi army officials and commanders but another regional country discovered the plot and informed Maliki through a secret message,” he said, but refrained from naming any one of the two aforementioned countries.

The Iraqi security official said the conspirators wanted to occupy Baghdad first and then take the city’s control through their secret agents.

In relevant remarks on Saturday an Arab political analyst warned that the recent political turmoil in Iraq was the result of intensified attempts and new plots by Saudi Arabia and Turkey to overthrow the government of Maliki.

Speaking to FNA in Baghdad on Saturday, Amir Mousavi said that countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey and even Jordan are in pursuit of toppling the Baghdad government.

“The current moves in Iraq had been plotted even before the case of former Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi in a bid to wreak havoc on the country,” Mousavi said.

Hashemi, a Sunni politician in the Iraqiya bloc, fled Baghdad in December days after US troops left when al-Maliki’s government sought his arrest on charges he ran a death squad.

Mousavi noted that some regional countries are hoping to achieve their mischievous goals in Syria by creating a chaotic situation in Iraq’s al-Anbar province.