London, Asharq Al-Awsat- Iraqi Member of Parliament Hadi Al-‘Amiri, is warning of a possible military coup against the government of Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki, Asharq Al-Awsat can reveal.

Al-‘Amiri, who heads the Badr Organization, the military wing of the High Council of the Islamic Revolution said during a speech in the city of Najaf, “There are some who talk about toppling Al-Maliki’s government and replacing it with a national rescue government, which we call a military coup government.”

Such an act, added Al-‘Amiri, would mean “the invalidation of the constitution and the results of the elections, as well as returning to the starting point.”

So far Al-Maliki’s plan to fight terror has not succeeded in bringing down the daily number of casualties in Iraq. Rough estimates indicate that during May and June 2006, more than 6,000 Iraqi were killed in insurgent and sectarian violence.

As a result of the increasing violence in Iraq, the U.S. command decided on Saturday to send another 3,700 troops to Baghdad.

elsewhere, A car packed with explosives exploded near the U.S. consulate in Kirkuk, killing two Iraqis and wounding seven others, Iraqi police said Sunday.

The explosion occurred late Saturday night in eastern Kirkuk, said police Col. Burhan Tayeb. No Americans were injured in the explosion, he said.

The bombing was the seventh car bombing this month in Kirkuk, where tensions are rising among Arabs, Kurds and Turkomen for control of the area’s vast oil wealth.

Police also said a sheik was killed and two of his cousins burned when their car caught fire at an intersection in Mosul, about 255 miles northwest of Baghdad.

Sheik Salih Yassin Elias had loaded benzene into the trunk of his car to use for generators when the fire started Saturday afternoon, police said.