Iraqi police dismantle anti-government protest camp in Anbar

Iraqi security forces Monday dismantled an anti-government protest site outside Anbar's provincial capital city of Ramadi, state TV reported. "Local police in cooperation with the provincial authorities in Anbar removed the tents from the protest site near Ramadi," the state-run Iraqia channel said. The move came after an agreement was reached between the security forces and the provincial officials, religious and tribal leaders, the channel said. Lieutenant General Mohammed al-Askari, the spokesman of the Iraqi defense ministry, told the channel that there were no casualties in the dispersal of the protest camp. Meanwhile, demonstrations took to the streets in Ramadi, some 100 km west of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad, as well as in several other cities of the province, protesting the removal of the protest site, while sporadic clashes erupted between gunmen and the Iraqi security forces in the province, a police source told Xinhua. Tension has been running high in the Sunni heartland of Anbar after the Iraqi security forces captured the Sunni Arab tribal leader Ahmad al-Alwani, who is also a lawmaker in the Iraqi parliament and the killing of his brother. The Sunnis have been carrying out a year-long protest, accusing the Shiite-led government of marginalizing them and its Shiite- dominated security forces of indiscriminately arresting, torturing and killing their sons. Alwani himself is one of the outspoken leading figures in the anti-government protests. Some opponent lawmakers have been demanding lifting his immunity, but their demand was rejected by the parliament. Iraq is witnessing its worst violence in recent years. According to the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq, about 8,109 Iraqis, including 952 members of Iraqi security forces, were killed in the country from January to November this year.