Al Qaeda Web site claims UN bombing in Baghdad
( 2003-08-26 09:23) (Agencies)
A statement posted on the Internet in the name of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network has claimed responsibility for an attack on the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad last week which killed 23 people, including the head of mission.
It was posted in Arabic late Sunday on the discussion Web site www.myislah.org and dated August 19, the day of the attack on the U.N. headquarters.
The statement's authenticity could not be verified. On Thursday, an Arabic television channel reported a previously unknown Iraqi group had claimed responsibility for the attack.
Written in heavily symbolic and oblique language, the latest statement was signed by Brigades of Abu Hafs al-Masri and followed by the words al Qaeda in parentheses.
It referred to a previous warning issued on August 15 in which it said it would "exhaust and confuse" America and its "henchmen."
"We meant that we would carry out such a lethal and surprising attack that the enemy will not know where, when and how we will strike," the statement said.
"So why the United Nations? Number one, the United Nations (is against Islam), it is a branch of the American State Department and it wears the robes of an international organization.
"The double standard policies of the United Nations are against Arabs and Muslims. This issue does not need to be proved. It is clear like the light of the sun at midday," the statement said.
The statement called U.N. envoy to Iraq, Brazilian Sergio Vieira de Mello, "America's number one man."
Vieira de Mello was killed when a truck loaded with explosives blew up outside his Baghdad office on August 19 and some investigators have suggested he was an intended target.
Diaa Rashwan, an expert on Islamic militant groups at the Cairo-based al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies, said al Qaeda had been using Internet discussion boards to distribute statements for about six months.
"The language and reference are in line with other al Qaeda statements," he said.
In the days after the attack Iraq's U.S. governor, Paul Bremer, said he believed the truck bombing had been carried out by Saddam Hussein loyalists or "foreign terrorists" -- or a combination of both.
The United States has blamed remnants of Saddam's regime for attacks in Iraq in the months since President Bush declared major conflict in the war to oust the Iraqi leader over on May 1.
But U.S. officials have said a large number of foreign fighters were entering the country. Bush last week said "al Qaeda-type fighters" were present in Iraq.
Washington accused al Qaeda of carrying out the September 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.
It was not clear if the name of the group issuing the claim was a reference to Mohammed Atef, also known as Abu Hafs. The Egyptian militant was a close associate of bin Laden and was reported to have been killed in U.S. military strikes on Afghanistan in December 2001 during the war to oust the Taliban and hunt down the al Qaeda members they sheltered.
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