The militant group led by the Jordanian extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi signalled a fresh escalation of the Iraq insurgency crisis on Sunday night by claiming responsibility for the massacre of about 50 members of the national guard found dead on a remote road in eastern Iraq.
Al-Qaeda in Iraq, formerly known as Tawhid and Jihad, said on an internet site it had carried out the murders. The group was responsible for the beheading of Ken Bigley and other western hostages as well as several suicide bombs.
The massacre was the latest in a series of increasingly lethal attacks against Iraq’s security forces, regarded as collaborators by insurgents, in an effort to affect troop strength and morale. Until now, they have mainly used suicide bombs, mortars and roadside devices.
Iraqi officials said the men, who had just finished three weeks of training at the Kir Kush military base near the Iranian border, were ambushed on Saturday evening at a bogus checkpoint between Balad Ruz and Qazaniya in Diyala province, 80km northeast of Baghdad.
A senior defence ministry official, Brigadier Salih Sarhan, said the soldiers, who were unarmed and wearing civilian clothing, ”were ordered from their buses by men in police uniforms, told to lie face down on the ground, and then shot in the back of the head”.
There were conflicting reports of the number of dead but police said they had recovered 51 bodies. ”It is a savage act. They were all executed,” said Colonel Adnan Abdul-Rahman, a spokesperson for the Interior Ministry in Baghdad.
General Walid al-Azzawi, commander of Diyala provincial police, said the bodies had been laid out in four rows.
Some reports said the attackers had first fired rocket propelled grenades at the three minibuses in which the soldiers were travelling back to their homes in southern Iraq.
Brigadier Sarhan said three civilian drivers had been killed. Two of the minibuses had been burned and one stolen by the attackers.
A statement posted online in the name of al-Qaeda in Iraq, which changed its name last week after pledging allegiance to Osama bin Laden, said: ”God enabled the Mujahideen to kill all of them and seize two cars and money.” It was not possible to authenticate the claim on Sunday but if true it could mark a new phase of tactics by the group and demonstrate its ability to strike across the Sunni triangle.
Equally disturbing for Iraqi authorities is the thought that Zarqawi’s followers have successfully infiltrated the country’s new security force.
Brigadier Sarhan said the massacre appeared to have been well planned. He said it remained unclear why the soldiers were not accompanied by an armed escort, and how the attackers appeared to have gained precise information about their movements.
The deputy governor of Diyala province, Aqil al-Adili, said either incompetence or collusion was to blame: ”There must have been an informant. How come they knew they were unarmed and they knew about the time and the way these men were travelling?”
Speaking on al-Sharqiya television, monitored by the BBC, the Iraqi defence minister, Hazim al-Shaalan, said: ”Once we identify and arrest the perpetrators, we will take tough measures against them. God willing … they will receive capital punishment.”
The deaths followed a suicide bomb attack on Iraqi security forces north and west of Baghdad on Friday, in which at least 22 Iraqi policemen and national guardsmen died.
In three separate incidents on Saturday, insurgents hit Iraq army and national guard forces on patrol in and around the central city of Samarra, lightly wounding two Iraqi soldiers, the US military said.
The Ansar al-Sunnah army, another militant group, yesterday claimed the killing of Taha Ahmed, a senior police officer in the Kurdish city of Irbil.
A United States diplomat was also killed in his sleep by ”indirect fire” at Baghdad airport on Sunday. An embassy official said Edward Seitz was an agent with the state department’s bureau of diplomatic security.
Seitz is thought to be the first diplomat killed in Iraq since the invasion. More than 1 000 US servicemen have died during the conflict.
Insurgent attacks have increased by 25% since the start of Ramadan last weekend.
News of the massacre of national guardsmen came as US forces continued the almost daily series of air strikes against suspected terrorist safe houses, meeting places and weapons stores in Falluja, west of Baghdad, where militants loyal to Zarqawi are said to be based.
Meanwhile, 500 soldiers of the Black Watch held a parade and prayer service in Basra, in preparation for their posting to an area south of Baghdad. The battalion and 100 members of the Queen’s Dragoon Guard, 50 Royal Marines and around 200 support staff will be patrolling Mahmudiya, Iskandariya and Latifiya, where law has broken down and kidnapping is rife. – Guardian Unlimited Â