U.S. Sees al-Qaida Link in Embassy Blast

A group linked to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network, Ansar al-Islam, may have been behind the car bombing of Jordan’s embassy in Baghdad, which killed 19 people, U.S. officials said Friday.

In the latest attack on American forces, a U.S. soldier was shot and killed in western Baghdad, the military reported Friday. Also, U.S. snipers killed two men unloading weapons for sale in a market in Saddam Hussein’s hometown of Tikrit.

American troops in Iraq have been plagued by guerrilla-style shootings and roadside bombs blamed on Saddam loyalists and other opponents of the U.S. occupation.

But Thursday’s embassy bombing, in contrast, was a classic terrorist operation – and could signal a new entrant onto the scene: terror groups and foreign fighters that U.S. officials have until now said have not played a major role in anti-U.S. violence in Iraq.

Ansar al-Islam’s main headquarters in northeastern Iraq near the Iranian border was wiped out in American bombing early in the war. It has been reconstituting in Iraq, with members who survived the American attack filtering back into the country from Iran, L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator of occupied Iraq, said at a recent news conference.

U.S.-run Radio Sawa, which broadcasts to the Middle East, quoted American Lt. Gen. Norton Schwartz on Friday as saying American authorities were looking at Ansar al-Islam as a potential sponsor of the bombing.

Officials on Friday raised the death toll from the blast to 19. After initially reporting 11 deaths, the morgue at a nearby children’s hospital where the bodies were taken raised the number by six, including two who died of injuries overnight. Two other hospitals near the embassy Friday reported one death each.

More than 50 people were wounded in the powerful explosion at the Jordanian Embassy, which set cars on fire, flung the hulk of one vehicle onto a rooftop and broke windows hundreds of yards away. On Friday, the Jordanian flag flew at half-mast as U.S. and Iraqi investigators looked through the debris for clues.

It was thought to be the first such attack since American forces took control of Baghdad April 9.

“What this shows is that in fact we have some terrorists that are operating here,” Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said at a news conference. “It shows we are still in a conflict zone.”

Schwartz said U.S. officials didn’t have any specific information linking Ansar al-Islam to the bombing but were looking for any possible link.

“That is an al Qaida-related organization and one that we are focusing attention on,” Schwartz said at the Pentagon. He added, “They had, before the war, infrastructure in Iraq, and some of that remains, and our effort is focused on eliminating that.”

The American soldier whose death was announced Friday was attacked Thursday night in the upscale al-Mansour neighborhood, the third American soldier reported slain in the capital in the past two days.

There were no other details of the death and his name was withheld until relatives are notified.

Since President Bush announced an end to major combat in Iraq on May 1, 56 soldiers have died in combat. The total combat casualties in the war has climbed to 170, 23 more than in the 1991 Gulf War.

In the Tikrit weapons market Friday, witnesses and military officials said the U.S. snipers killed two men and wounded two others.

Women ran screaming as they heard the shots and saw a man who was unloading AK-47 assault rifles from the trunk of a red sedan fall to the ground, according to a witness who was selling biscuits.

U.S. forces had positioned snipers around the market after hearing that weapons and ammunition were sold there every Friday, said Lt. Col. Steve Russell, whose 22nd Infantry Regiment, 1st Battalion, executed the operation.

“When people pick up weapons and carrying them freely, they become combatants and we will engage them,” Russell said. “I think we sent out a strong message today that you cannot walk around the streets with weapons.”

Hundreds of residents watched from across the road as soldiers examined the scene and Iraqi police removed a dead body covered in a black-and-white kaffiyah headscarf near the center of the market. Soldiers said he was shot as he tried to flee with an AK-47.

Beside the red car, about 10 yards away, the earth was soaked with blood at the spot where Russell said one of the alleged arms dealers was shot in the head as he unloaded three to four rifles. Soldiers showed reporters an ID card bearing the dead man’s photo that was issued in Saddam’s regime as a sign of privilege for his supporters.

Curved AK-47 cartridge clips lay carefully stacked in fours on a series of seven plastic tarps laid out in the dust behind the car. A tangle of red-and-blue wires and a crude fuse-detonated bomb lay on one of the tarps.

One of the wounded men escaped, while the other was being treated for injuries at a nearby hospital, Russell said.

Jordanian officials in Amman were quick to label the bombing of their embassy an “orchestrated terrorist attack” aimed at Jordan.

Iraq’s U.S.-appointed Governing Council issued a statement blaming members of Saddam’s former government but making no mention of terrorism. Tensions between Jordan and Iraq have been high because of the Jordanian government’s support for the U.S.-led war to oust Saddam’s regime. Jordan also gave asylum last week to two of Saddam’s daughters.

In Washington, Powell said the attack strengthened U.S. resolve to “unite the world in this campaign against terrorism.”