(Writes through, adds Saddam trial, Hashemi killing, bomb) By Mariam Karouny BAGHDAD, Oct 9 (Reuters) - Gunmen in camouflage uniforms killed the brother of Iraq's Sunni Arab Vice President Tareq al -Hashemi on Monday, drawing swift condemnation from across Iraq's political divide and senior U.S. officials. Parliament's biggest Sunni political group blamed militias and warned it could jeopardise Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki's plan to reconcile warring Shi'ite and Sunni sects. Lieutenant General Amer al-Hashemi, a senior Defence Ministry adviser, was the third of Hashemi's siblings killed since April. Gunmen also killed his sister and another brother. Hashemi is one of the most senior Sunni Arabs in Maliki's Shi'ite-led national unity government, which is struggling to contain the Sunni-Shi'ite violence convulsing the country and, by some estimates, killing up to 100 people a day. A car bomb exploded in a busy Baghdad market at dusk as people were heading home to break their daylong Ramadan fast, killing 13 and wounding 46, police said. The U.S. military has said bombings in Baghdad are at an all-time high. Parliament opened its session on Monday with Shi'ite, Sunni and Kurdish blocs condemning Hashemi's killing. "The security forces will capture the killers to bring them to justice," Maliki said in a statement. Iraqi police said gunmen driving in cars similar to those used by Interior Ministry special forces attacked Hashemi's house at dawn. They kidnapped the guards outside the building and then killed the general and his bodyguard. U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and the top U.S. general in Iraq, General George Casey, called his killers the enemies of the Iraqi people and pledged their support in helping the Iraqi security forces bring them to justice. Like many similar attacks in Iraq, however, Hashemi's killers may never be found. Sunni Arab leaders say Shi'ite militias have infiltrated the police to carry out death-squad killings against their minority sect and accuse Maliki's government of lacking the political will to disband them. Several of the most powerful militias are tied to parties within Maliki's Shi'ite Alliance. "We tell the government that this happened because you have refrained from dissolving the militias, which are using the uniforms of the (Iraqi) forces and their weapons," the Sunni Arab Accordance Front said in a statement. "By failing to do this you are making the reconciliation process fail by your own hands." Tareq al-Hashemi's Iraqi Islamic party is the biggest group in the Front. The inclusion of Hashemi and other Sunnis in Maliki's government was seen as a sign that the disaffected community was joining the political process, a key step in weakening support for the insurgency. Heavily armed militias, many often dressed in camouflage uniforms, are blamed for inflaming the sectarian conflict that has pushed Iraq to the brink of civil war. They roam Baghdad, pulling people from cars and their homes, executing them and dumping their bodies in the streets. "The security situation in Baghdad is clearly tough at the moment ... sectarian tensions in the city are high," a U.S. military spokesman said. MASS POLICEMEN POISONING Maliki ordered an investigation on Monday into mass food poisoning that left at least 350 policemen ill on Sunday at their base in Numaniya, 120 km (75 miles) southeast of Baghdad. An Interior Ministry spokesman said the contractor responsible for supplying the food had been arrested along with the cooks, and initial reports showed the food had been too old. Police sources at the base said seven people had died, but a military spokesman denied this. "Only 350 to 400 people were poisoned. They were given medical treatment instantly and four were taken to a nearby hospital and everyone is back to normal," spokesman Brigadier Qasim al-Musawi told a news conference. In Baghdad, a Kurdish woman told Saddam Hussein's genocide trial that his forces had buried alive her family in a mass grave during a military operation against ethnic Kurds in northern Iraq in the 1980s. Saddam, 69, his cousin, Ali Hassan al-Majeed, and five former commanders face charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity for their role in the Anfal campaign that prosecutors say left 182,000 ethnic Kurds dead or missing. (Additional reporting by Jaafar al-Taei in Kut, Mussab Khairalla, Ahmed Rasheed, Aseel Kami in Baghdad)
