BAGHDAD, Oct 1: Sunni and Shia leaders in Iraq clashed publicly on Sunday over a US allegation that a bodyguard for a top Sunni politician might have plotted an Al Qaeda suicide attack on the vast Green Zone government compound.

Rifts between parties in the four-month-old unity government broke the surface as data indicated sectarian violence may have claimed a record number of victims last month and a new mass kidnap saw 26 meat factory workers seized by gunmen in Baghdad.

Iraq’s national security adviser said security forces were closing in on the Al Qaeda leader in Iraq who took over from the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in June. But the US ambassador said the main threat to Iraq was now from general sectarian violence.

As Baghdad returned to nervous normality after a 24-hour curfew imposed to avert the suicide bomb threat, a leading parliamentary supporter of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr accused the government of being “infiltrated by terrorists”.

He was responding to the arrest on Friday of a bodyguard to Adnan al-Dulaimi, leader of the Sunni Accordance Front bloc. The US military said the man may have been plotting a major Al Qaeda suicide attack on the parliament and government complex.

Bahaa al-Araji, prominent in the Shia Alliance bloc of which Sadr is part, demanded that Alliance Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki reshuffle his cabinet to improve security. He hinted that Shia leaders no longer trusted Sunni Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zobaie, who is in charge of security issues.

That drew a sharp response from allies of Dulaimi: “All this talk about car bombs and so on in Adnan Dulaimi’s house is fabricated,” the Accordance Front’s Hussein al-Falluji said.

“It seems there’s some kind of political pressure from some people in the alliance and the timing of this issue was calculated in advance to affect his standing,” he told Reuters.

An ally of Maliki said the premier was sticking to a plan to reshuffle his cabinet and expected to do so this month: “There is strong support for change from the alliance,” he said. “The prime minister is strong but his cabinet is weak.”

DELICATE BALANCE: Among those named as possible targets for a reshuffle have been supporters of Sadr, whose militia followers are blamed for much sectarian violence by US and some Iraqi officials. Some Sadr supporters say they would be better off in opposition.—Reuters