Later a top general said only 24 interior and defence ministry personnel had been arrested, and stated that they were held on suspicion of aiding terrorism rather than of planning a coup.

On Friday, Interior Minister Jawad Bolani said the allegations against them were "fabricated and not based on any security fact or any intelligence information."

The incident happened, "because the ministry has limited the influence of certain political parties in the interior ministry and other ministries," he added without elaborating.

"The persons who want to do something to the interior ministry will find me standing in their way," Bolani said.

Announcing the arrests on Thursday, a security official had said the people held were "linked to the Al-Awda (The Return), a clandestine group that was working to bring the Baath party back into power."

Al-Awda first surfaced in June 2003, just three months after the launch of the US-led invasion.

It groups former members of the Baath party, Saddam's former elite Republican Guard and his security services, which were dismantled in the aftermath of the war.

Maliki's critics reportedly accused the prime minister of arresting political enemies to consolidate his power ahead of provincial elections due to be held at the end of January.

Without giving a source, the Arab daily newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat said on Saturday that "the arrests were carried out by a special counter-terrorism group supervised personally by Maliki."

The operation "could have been launched by Maliki to weaken his rivals before the provincial elections" scheduled for the end of January, it said, decrying an "atmosphere of political secrecy and rivalry in Iraq."

However, the arrests could also show how the Shiite-led government believes that supporters of the old regime still pose a threat, where even a hint of a Baathist role in a conspiracy would raise alarm bells.

The Iraqi government still considers former regime supporters a major threat because they have more supporters than extremist groups.

ME Online