Iraqi Science and Technology Minister resigned Tuesday after a deadly raid on Sunni protestors at a sit-in camp in northern Iraq, Iraq's Parliament speaker Osama al-Nujaifias said.

The speaker said that Abdul-Kareem al-Samarrai, a leading figure in his political bloc of Mutahidoun, resigned from the cabinet over the raid by the Iraqi security forces on Sunni protestors in the city of Hawijah, which killed at least 25 people.

"I would like to announce that Dr. Abdul-Kareem al-Samarrai, the minister of science and technology, has submitted his resignation today," al-Nujaifias said, adding that al-Samarrai phoned him, asking him to announce his resignation, as he is now outside the country.

Earlier in the day, Iraq's Education Minister Mohammed Tamim announced his resignation during a meeting by the (Sunni-backed) Iraqia bloc after the Iraqi forces stormed the sit-in camp in Hawijah.

Al-Nujaifi also warned that the storm on the protest camp would drag the country to civil war, advising the Iraqi forces not to fight the protestors.

"We call on the armed forces not to obey orders to confront and shoot the protestors, and we call on the Iraqi tribes to cease fire. Don't go with a plot that would drag the country into a civil war," he said.

Early in the morning, Iraqi security forces swept an anti- government sit-in camp by the Sunni Arab community in Hawijah, some 220 km north of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad.

The clashes came a day after the Sunni community held a one-day civil disobedience protesting the discrimination against their community by the Shiite-led government in Baghdad.