US forces arrest Iraq's deputy parliament speaker

Last week, the Iraqi Islamic Party withdrew from the interim government in protest over the US-Iraqi full-scale assault on Fallujah.

"The Iraqi Islamic Party has decided to withdraw from the government in protest against the attack on Fallujah that causing the killing of civilians," announced Mohsen Abdul Hamid, the secretary of the party and member of Iraq's provisional National Assembly.

Since last Monday, the US military and interim Iraqi government troops have launched full-scale assault on Fallujah, 50 km west of Baghdad, in order to retake the key rebel stronghold to pave way for the general elections slated for January. Enditem

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BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) U.S. forces arrested a senior member of an influential Sunni political party Tuesday after a dawn raid on his Baghdad home, party officials said.

Naseer Ayaef, a high-ranking member of the Iraqi Islamic Party, was taken into custody in the northwestern Jamiah neighborhood in retaliation for the party's opposition to the U.S.-led offensive on the rebel city of Fallujah, party official Ayad al-Samarrai told The Associated Press.

''This action is a kind of punishment to the (Iraqi) Islamic Party because we object to what is happening in Iraq, especially Fallujah and to the security policies adopted by the Americans and the Iraqi government,'' al-Samarrai said.

''We think that peaceful solutions and negotiations are the best way to solve problems away from violence. Such attitudes will complicate things in Iraq,'' he said.

Ayaef, a member of the interim Iraqi National Council, a government oversight body, was also part of the Fallujah delegation that tried and failed to negotiate peace talks with the central government.

Last week, the Iraqi Islamic Party, one of the strongest Sunni political parties in the country had withdrawn from the interim government to protest the U.S. assault, saying it ''has led and will lead to more killings and genocide without mercy from the Americans.''

The party's one Cabinet member, Minister of Industry Hajim al-Hassani , was told to quit the government but al-Hassani refused and was later fired from the party.

The Iraqi Islamic Party is the Iraqi branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, a moderate Sunni Islamic party well established in the Middle East.

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