Iraqi security forces have raided the house of a prominent Sunni lawmaker, finding traces of explosives in his vehicles and seizing a cache of weapons including a sniper rifle, a military spokesman said on Sunday.

Brigadier General Qassim Mussawi said that four vehicles had been tested by non-Iraqi experts in the house of Dhafir al-Ani, spokesman for the Iraqi Islamic Party, a leading Sunni party, which joins Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's government.

"The cars had traces of TNT, high explosive. The report about the investigation was not written by Iraqis," Mussawi said, referring to US forces who made the discovery in the raid on March 8.

Seven suspects were detained in the raid and up to 65 AK-47assault rifles and other weapons and the four vehicles seized, he said.

"We have dealt transparently with the detainees and released six of them, because we do not have enough evidence against them," he added.

"We are still holding one of them who had a sniper rifle," he said.

A source from the Iraqi Islamic Party anonymously said that Ani was outside Iraq in the raid and the charges were politically motivated.

(Xinhua News Agency March 19, 2007)