A top Iraqi security official voiced fears on Tuesday over any change in the Syrian regime that would bring Islamic "hardliners" to power, which he described as a threat to the Middle East.

"The arrival of fundamentalists and hardliners to power in Syria would be a major threat to Iraq and all the countries in the region," said Major General Fadhil Birwari, the military commander of Iraq's anti-terror force.

"If hardliners take power in Syria, this will affect the security situation in Iraq."

Birwari's remarks highlight fears in Baghdad that a regime change in Damascus, which has been rocked by protests for months, would raise communal tensions in Iraq.

As a result, the Iraqi government has tread carefully in its comments over Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's violent crackdown on demonstrators, which has left more than 5,000 people dead on both sides, according to the latest UN figures.

"I know that people must get their freedom and their will and democracy and equal citizenship," Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Monday at a joint news conference with US President Barack Obama in Washington. "We are with these rights ... because we have achieved that ourselves,"

"But I do not have the right to ask a president to abdicate. We cannot give ourselves this right," said Maliki, adding that he hoped Syrians would achieve their aspirations without affecting Iraqi security.

Iraq is ruled by a Shiite-led national unity government and though violence levels are down since brutal sectarian bloodshed in 2006 and 2007, attacks by Sunni insurgents remain common.

Sunni-majority Syria, by contrast, is governed by Assad's Alawite Shiite regime.