Baghdad, Iraq – Al-Qaeda in Iraq branded the Sunni vice president a “criminal” for being in the U.S.-backed government, and a suicide bomber struck army recruits Saturday west of Baghdad, killing at least 15 people in another warning to Sunnis not to cooperate with the Shiite leadership.
The suicide attack in the mostly Sunni town of Abu Ghraib was the deadliest in a series of attacks that left at least 74 people dead nationwide.
The verbal attack on Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi was purportedly delivered by al-Qaeda leader Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri, in an audiotape posted on an extremist website days after authorities claimed he had been killed.
During the 21-minute speech, he criticized al-Hashemi as “this criminal” who “relentlessly calls” for U.S. troops to remain in Iraq. Al-Hashemi has resisted calls by fellow Sunni leaders to quit the Shiite- dominated government.
The speaker denied clashes between al-Qaeda and other “jihadist groups or our blessed tribes,” saying reports to the contrary by U.S. and Iraqi authorities were only “lies and a desperate attempt to drive a wedge within the ranks of the jihadists.”
Iraqi officials announced last week that al-Masri had been killed in a fight among al- Qaeda members; they could not produce a body, and U.S. officials said they could not confirm the report.
Hours later, a video was released showing Osama bin Laden’s deputy mocking the nearly 3-month-old Baghdad security plan, recounting the April 12 suicide bombing at the Iraqi parliament cafeteria in the U.S.-controlled Green Zone, when a man slipped through security and blew himself up amid lunching lawmakers, killing one Sunni legislator.
“And lest Bush worry, I congratulate him on the success of his security plan, and I invite him on the occasion for a glass of juice, but in the cafeteria of the Iraqi parliament in the middle of the Green Zone,” Ayman al-Zawahri said, according to the Washington-based SITE Institute, which monitors militant statements.
Al-Zawahri blamed Shiite- Sunni violence on those in Iraq “who do not want the coalition forces to leave.”
