A website posting purportedly written by a group affiliated with al-Qaeda has claimed responsibility for deadly attacks outside a United States military base and an ambush that killed four employees of an American security company. A pair of claims, monitored on Monday in Cairo on a website where Islamic militant postings often are made, were signed off "The military wing of Monotheism and Jihad", a group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whom the US accuses of masterminding numerous terror attacks in the past year. It was not possible to verify the authenticity of the claims. One claim described the attackers as heroes and said the group is "bent on destroying the bastions of the Americans and their renegade allies". One attacker, it said, "headed to a US military camp in Taji area, north of Baghdad, inflicting on them heavy losses. He was martyred."
"The second hero headed to a bastion of American allies of army and police who sold their religion, honour and land for a cheap price... This camp is considered an important centre for recruiting and training military and police cadet," the statement said, adding it was just a few metres from the base. Two car-bombings on Sunday outside Taji air base, a former Iraqi air force facility used by the US Army about 20km north of Baghdad, killed nine people, including some near a police station 750m from the base gates. It was unclear if the explosions were suicide attacks, though the statement indicated at least one was. A statement dated Saturday and signed off by the same group, posted at the same site, said members of the group surrounded two cars belonging to the CIA that each carried four people. "After a heavy clash, holy warriors managed to set on fire the two cars with their occupants," it said. The statement appeared to be referring to a Saturday ambush on the main road to Baghdad airport in which two Americans and two Poles working for the Blackwater USA security company were killed. |