Al Qaeda claims Allawi suicide blast

Last updated at 09:55 21 April 2005


Iraq's Al Qaeda wing has said was behind the attempted assassination of caretaker prime minister Iyad Allawi, according to a statement posted on the internet.

A suicide bomber in a car attacked Allawi's convoy yesterday as he headed home from a meeting on a new cabinet line-up.

The attack came hours after President Jalal Talabani announced that he hoped the new government would be finalised today - more than 11 weeks after Iraq's historic elections.

"A lion from the martyrs' brigade launched a heroic attack on the headquarters of infidels ... and Jewish and Christian allies. Allawi escaped and the arrow missed, but there are many other arrows," said the statement, which could not be immediately authenticated.

One policeman was killed in the blast and four were wounded, police said. Allawi was unhurt.

Allawi, who escaped assassination by Saddam Hussein's agents while in exile in London, was seen as a tough prime minister, imposing emergency laws in a bid to crush the insurgency.

But he hands on a huge security challenge for his successor, Islamist Shi'ite politician Ibrahim Jaafari.

The shooting of 19 Iraqi National Guardsmen at a soccer stadium north of Baghdad and Talabani's account of 50 bodies being hauled from a river near the capital indicated a revival in violence despite a relative lull after the January 30 elections.

Three other car bombings in Baghdad killed at least two Iraqi civilians and wounded eight. And two car bombs struck the entrance of a US and National Guard base in Ramadi, a hotbed of resistance about 60 miles west of Baghdad.

Al Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has said it was behind a string of attacks against US troops and the Iraqi government.

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