24 Hours in Iraq: 102 Dead, Al-qaida Bombers Blamed

The US military in Iraq last night sought to blame al-Qaida loyalists and foreign militants for a series of recent suicide bombings, including two attacks that killed more than 100 Iraqis in 24 hours.

Under pressure to explain the sudden escalation in violence, commanders also released details of a 17-page letter they claim was written by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian fugitive allegedly linked to Osama bin Laden.

The document suggests militants led by Zarqawi have been attempting to incite a civil war between Sunni and Shia Muslims in order "to prolong the duration of the fight between the infidels and us".

A $10m (£5.3m) reward has been offered for his capture.

In Britain, well-placed sources said that recent intelligence, and the interrogation of captured Iraqis, pointed to stronger links between insurgents and the al-Qaida network. But officials said it was too early to conclude definitively that the bombings were linked to al-Qaida.

British security and intelligence agencies have in the past criticised the US for jumping to conclusions about links be tween Saddam and al-Qaida. Zarqawi's letter admitted the militants had struggled to find support among the Iraqi population. Such supporters, it said, were "rarer than red sulphur". So far very few of the thousands of suspects detained by the Americans in Iraq have been foreigners.

Yesterday, in the second suicide attack in Iraq in just two days, a car bomber blew himself up outside an army recruitment base in Baghdad, killing at least 47 people and wounding dozens more. The targeting of civilians seeking to join the army yesterday, and the police in the previous day's bombing, point to a clear strategy by the insurgents to disrupt plans to hand over power to the Iraqis as soon as possible.

Witnesses described how the bomber drove a white Oldsmobile saloon car into a crowd of hundreds of volunteers queuing at the entrance to the base in western Baghdad.

The explosion at the recruitment centre destroyed the entrance gate and gouged a large crater out of the road. "All the bodies were thrown into the air," said Mohammad Naji, 45, chief of the district's ambulance service. "We found body parts on the opposite side of the road and on the palm trees hundreds of metres from the gate." Many of those queuing were about to be taken to Jordan for training and carried with them clothes and wash bags.

Haitham Ahmed, 29, was among the volunteers but had walked inside the base and was protected by a sandbag barrier when the car exploded.

"The man who was standing opposite me died but I survived," he said. A former second lieutenant in the Iraqi army, he hoped for a regular salary by joining the new military force being trained by the US. "We had already filled out the forms to join the new army and we were told to come today to find out if we had been successful or not," he said. "It is my country and if I don't protect this country then who is going to do it?"

On Tuesday, another suicide bomber drove a pick-up truck into the entrance of a police station in Iskandiriya, south of Baghdad. That attack also targeted volunteers who were queuing to sign up for the police force, killing at least 55.

At a press conference yesterday, Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt, deputy chief of operations, said: "When you see suicide, spectacular and symbolic, these kinds of attack, one has the tendency to look at foreign fighters." He said there were "al-Qaida fingerprints all over" Tuesday's bombing.

The ever-growing list of brutal suicide attacks suggest Iraq's insurgents have a ready supply of men willing to die for their cause and good intelligence about the targets they want to hit. Nearly 250 Iraqis have been killed in bombings in the first six weeks of the year.

Although military officials believe there are some non-Iraqi Islamist militants operating in the country, there are also other powerful forces at work, including not only military loyal to Saddam Hussein but also Iraqi nationalists who are simply fighting the military occupation of their country.