The son of Shiite leader that Chimpy invited to the White House this past December is detained by US forces in Iraq.

US forces have detained Ammar al-Hakim, the son of Abdel Aziz al-Hakim, one of Iraq’s most powerful Shiite leaders and a supporter of the US-backed government, his office said Friday.

“US forces detained Ammar al-Hakim as he was driving back from     Iran. They took him with two guards. There has been lots of communication and the situation is on its way to being resolved,” said an official in Hakim’s office.

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Hakim senior is head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), a Shiite party that was founded by his brother Mohammed Bakr al-Hakim in Tehran in 1982 under the wing of Iran’s Islamic regime.

But despite the party’s continuing close ties to Tehran and claims that its armed wing is involved in political assassination and arms smuggling, SCIRI is considered moderate by Iraqi standards and has been courted by Washington.

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Hakim senior met President George W. Bush in the White House on December 4 last year as US diplomats attempted to push Iraqi centrists into reforming their ruling coalition in order to exclude hardline sectarian factions.

Nevertheless, relations between SCIRI and the United States have become more tense in the weeks since the meeting, especially after US troops raided a home in Hakim’s Baghdad compound and arrested two Iranian officials.

US military officers later described the Iranians as senior members of the Qods Force, an Iranian undercover unit which Washington accuses of supplying sophisticated weapons and training to Shiite militias battling US troops.