Al Qaeda claims Baghdad bomb attack

Last updated at 15:17 14 April 2005


Iraq's Al Qaeda wing claimed responsibility for twin suicide car bombs that killed at least 15 people near an Interior Ministry building in Baghdad today.

"Two lions from the martyrs' brigade ... launched themselves - one attacked an apostate police patrol guarding the office of the apostate minister while the second hit the rear end of a 9-car patrol," the group led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site.

Violence

The bombs detonated in quick succession near the Interior Ministry building on a crowded street, cutting short what had seemed to be a lull in violence since elections in January.

Zarqawi's group, which has claimed responsibility for a string of attacks against US troops and the Iraqi government, said the bombings were a message to US Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick that the insurgency could not be quashed.

"Yesterday, the lieutenant of the Jews and Christians declared that the fires of the blessed jihad (holy war) in Iraq could be extinguished, but this coward has been defeated and disappointed," Al Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq said.

Zoellick and US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited Iraq and lauded the progress made in Iraq's transition from authoritarian rule towards democracy.

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