UPI, Tehran, Feb. 25, 2010 — An Iraqi Shiite lawmaker informally exiled in Tehran said he won’t be campaigning in public in Iraq because he fears arrest, or worse, by U.S. officials.

In an interview with the McClatchy News Service from Tehran, Iraqi parliamentarian Abu Mahdi al-Mohandas said he won’t campaign in Iraq in public for fear of his life.

’Since 2005, the Americans have conveyed a message through an Iraqi mediator that they’ll kidnap or assassinate me,’ he said.

The U.S. Treasury Department in July sanctioned the Shiite leader for allegedly aiding in the training of anti-American forces loyal to radical cleric Moqtada Sadr.

Washington also accuses Mohandas of playing a role in a 1983 plot to attack foreign embassies in Kuwait, where he was working as an engineer.

Top U.S. military officials added the Shiite leader was an agent of the elite Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Washington in recent weeks said it was worried that Tehran was influencing the political landscape in Baghdad as U.S. forces prepare to leave the country.

Mohandas, who called the allegations baseless, told McClatchy that despite his nationalistic positions, he thought Washington had an important role to play in Iraq.

’They can help Iraqis,’ he said. ’We can build a democratic political system that denounces violence and terrorism and it would help to have great relations between Iraq and the United States.’