Bombs, rockets seized in Iraqi lawmaker's home

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. and Iraqi troops raided a house belonging to a Sunni political party in Baghdad and seized a large number of weapons, including bomb-making equipment and rockets, the U.S. military said on Saturday.

It said 14 suspects had been arrested in the raid on what it called a "safe house" in Baghdad's western Mansour district on Tuesday. It said the 14 were part of a government-sanctioned bodyguard force for an Iraqi member of parliament.

It did not name the party or the legislator, but sources in the Sunni Accordance Front, the biggest Sunni political group in parliament, said the house belonged to Khalaf Alian, a leading member of the political bloc.

Alian, a former senior army officer under Saddam Hussein, is out of the country for medical treatment, the sources said, adding that the bodyguards had been living in his house. They had no information on the weapons haul.

Shi'ite and Kurdish officials have often accused some Sunni political parties of ties to the anti-government insurgency.

The incident comes at a time when the Shi'ite-led government is coming under increasing pressure from Washington to draw minority Sunnis closer into the political process to take the sting out of the four-year-old Sunni insurgency.

The size of the weapons haul, even in a country awash in weapons, was unusual.

The U.S. military said troops found machineguns, assault rifles, sub-machineguns, pistols, eight rockets, bomb-making materials, and 5,000 rounds of ammunition. Mortar bombs with timing devices were also unearthed in the grounds of the house.

"An initial search of the home revealed an anti-coalition calendar, photos of burning British soldiers, photos of the 2004 Mosul dining facility bombing and photos of American flag-draped coffins," the U.S. military said in a statement.