BAGHDAD, Iraq — Iraqi leaders on Sunday denounced Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, for publicly asserting that Iraq was already engulfed in civil war and that Iraqi Shiites were loyal to Iran.
Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a conservative Shiite, President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, and Adnan Pachachi, a secular Sunni Arab, held a news conference to rebut Mubarak's assertions.
Mubarak, a Sunni Arab, made the remarks in an interview on Saturday with Al-Arabiya, a popular Middle Eastern network.
"The comments have upset Iraqi people who come from different religious and ethnic backgrounds and have astonished and upset the Iraqi government," said al-Jaafari, who is fighting to keep his job. "What also drew our astonishment was that he described the security problems in Iraq as civil war at a time when our people have proven that they are avoiding sectarian war," he added.
Talabani said: "The Shiites' patriotism cannot be questioned. They are pioneers in the national struggle."
The leading Shiite party in the country, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, demanded that Mubarak apologize and threatened a boycott of the Egyptian government if he refused.
The Supreme Council, led by Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, is especially sensitive about its perceived loyalties to Iran, because the party was founded in Iran in the early 1980s and has a militia that fought against Iraq during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, in which a million people died. The council entered Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein and is trying to live down its history of fighting against Iraqis.
Mubarak told Al-Arabiya on Saturday, "Shiites are mostly always loyal to Iran and not the countries where they live." He added, "Naturally Iran has an influence over Shiites, who make up 65 percent of Iraq's population."
Many Iraqi Shiites are known to distrust Iran, a vestige of historical Arab hostility toward the Persians and the war between the countries. But some of the governing parties in Iraq are very close to Iran. Besides the Supreme Council, they include al-Jaafari's group and the organization of Muqtada al-Sadr, the young cleric who has led two uprisings against American forces.
Mubarak's comments on civil war touched on one of the biggest questions confronting Iraqis and Americans here: Has one already begun? Many say it has, including the former prime minister Ayad Allawi, an ally of the White House.
Meanwhile, at least 15 people were killed Sunday, including eight suspected insurgents shot by American soldiers in a predawn raid north of the capital.