Baghdad mayor deposed in coup

Armed men entered Baghdad's municipal building during a blinding dust storm Monday and deposed the city's mayor Alaa al-Tamimi, the New York Times reported today. They then installed Hussein al-Tahaan, a member of Iraq's most powerful Shiite militia, the Badr Organization which is the armed militia of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq, known as Sciri.

Fearing for his life, the mayor has reportedly gone into hiding. Speaking to the Times by phone Tuesday, he recounted the events and called the move a municipal coup d'état. 'This is the new Iraq, they use force to achieve their goal,' Tamimi, a secular engineer with no party affiliation, was quoted as saying.

Howver, the group that evicted him from office insisted it was not a coup, and said it had the authority to assume control of Baghdad . The militia has been credited with keeping the peace in a Shia-dominated area, the report said, but was also said to be forcing orthodox Shia religious law, such as forcing women to wear veils.

The group also said that Tamimi was in no danger. 'If we wanted to do something bad to him, we would have done that,' said Mazen A. Makkia, the elected city council chief who led the ouster on Monday, according to the Times.

'We really want to establish the state of law for every citizen, and we did not threaten anyone," he said. 'This is not a coup.'

A spokesman for the American Embassy in Baghdad said that he was aware of the developments but that he had no immediate comment, the Times reported

Makkia, a member of a Shiite political party that swept to victory during the across-the-board Shiite successes during January's elections, confirmed that he had entered the building with armed men but said that they were bodyguards for him and several other council members who accompanied him.

The deposed mayor, who was appointed by the central government and held ministerial rank, was originally put in place by L. Paul Bremer III, the top American administrator in the country until an Iraqi government took over in June 2004.