Iraq detains 16 vice presidential guards

Iraqi security forces have detained 16 of Tareq al-Hashemi's bodyguards, the interior ministry said, in a move the fugitive vice president said Tuesday was the latest in a string of false accusations.

Hashemi is hiding in the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq after the Baghdad authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in mid-December on charges of running a death squad.

The Kurdistan authorities have so far declined to hand him over to the central government for trial.

"Interior ministry security forces detained 16 members of Vice President of the Republic Tareq al-Hashemi's guard, who were practising assassinations with silenced rifles and pistols targeting interior ministry officers and judges," the ministry said in a statement posted on its website on Monday.

The statement said the guards confessed after being detained, and that the arrests followed confessions by some of their colleagues.Hashemi's office denounced the detentions and said it "does not represent anything new in the series of fabricated accusations, and will not attract the attention of the Iraqi people."

A statement said the guards had previously been told they were not wanted and allowed to go on leave, but were later arrested.

"Is it reasonable that people involved in terrorist activities prefer to return to a site that is sealed off by (security forces) to be arrested, or is it logical for them to take the first chance for them to run away?" Hashemi asked, noting that they had such a chance when they went on leave.

Meanwhile, human rights group Amnesty International said two women employed by Hashemi's office were detained on January 1 and that their whereabouts were not known.