DUBAI, Feb 8 (AFP) - Militants loyal to Iraq's most wanted man, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for a suicide attack in Baghdad on Tuesday that the interim government said killed 15 people.
"A lion from the martyrs brigade of the Al-Qaeda Group of Jihad in the Land of the Two Rivers infiltrated the centre of a group of apostates wanting to join the national guard... in Baghdad," said a statement posted on an Islamist website.
The statement, whose authenticity could not be verified, said "more than 25 apostates were killed and several dozen wounded."
An Iraqi interior ministry official said two soldiers and 13 civilians who had just signed up to the military were killed when a suicide bomber walked into a queue of army recruits in Baghdad.
Thirteen other civilians were also wounded in the attack at the entrance to the Muthana military base in west Baghdad, the official said.
Zarqawi, the Al-Qaeda frontman in Iraq, is a Jordanian-born fugitive with a 25-million-dollar US price on his head.
02/08/2005 13:39 GMT - AFP