Al-Qaida Linked to Baghdad Hotel Bombing

Sunni extremists with links to al-Qaida today said a suicide bombing that killed several tribal leaders at a Baghdad hotel was in retaliation for the rape of a Sunni Muslim woman.

The Islamic State in Iraq group said the attack against the tribal leaders from the western province of Anbar followed the alleged rape of the woman by policemen.

"Members of the apostate police force at Anbar entered the house of one of our kin in Anbar ... they held the father in one room and took one of his daughters and violated her honor," it said in a statement posted on a website used by militants.

"Our leader ordered a quick response to this important matter," it said, adding that an Iraqi militant carried out the suicide attack on yesterday at the Mansour Hotel.

Ten people including six tribal leaders were killed as Sunni Arab tribal leaders from Anbar gathered for the meeting. Several Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar have joined forces with the US to fight against al-Qaida-backed militants, triggering a power struggle in the region.

A Sunni tribal sheik also was killed in a drive-by shooting in southwestern Baghdad, police said, the latest example in the increasingly violent internecine fight among Sunnis.

Separately, an arrest warrant was issued against Iraq's Sunni culture minister, and police raided his home after he was accused of ordering a 2005 assassination attempt against a secular Sunni politician that killed his two sons, officials said.

The minister Asad Kamal al-Hashimi, who was not at home during the raid, was identified by two suspected militants as the mastermind of an ambush against then-parliamentary candidate Mithal al-Alusi, according to Ali al-Dabbagh, a government spokesman. Mr Al-Alusi escaped unharmed but two of his sons were killed.

Mr al-Hashimi is the first full cabinet minister to face arrest, although Iraqi authorities have arrested other senior officials, including the deputy health minister who was linked to Shia militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

The prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shia, has vowed not to let political or sectarian considerations stop him from cracking down on violence, but the warrant against a prominent Sunni politician could set back reconciliation efforts with the disaffected minority Sunni population.

Mr al-Hashimi's party, the hardline Congress of the People of Iraq, condemned the arrest warrant and warned the Shia-dominated government to avoid "playing with fire by continuing the policy of fabricating lies to exclude Sunni politicians and officials from the Iraqi arena."