Time magazine: Group claims credit for bloody attack (Extra)

Apr 12, 2007, 17:23 GMT

Washington - An al-Qaeda controlled group, Islamic State in Iraq, has claimed credit for Thursday's penetrating blast at the Iraqi Parliament that killed at least seven people, according to the US weekly magazine Time.

The magazine said the group posted a message on a 'prominent' militant website, muslm.net, which called the attack a warning to anyone who cooperates with 'the occupier and its agents.'

'We will reach you wherever you are,' the magazine quoted the message as saying.

The seven dead at the Parliament cafeteria included three members of Parliament. The blast occurred during lunchtime. In addition, at least ten people were killed and a number of people were missing after a near simultaneous explosion at a bridge over the Tigris River in Baghdad.

Parliament is located in the nearly impenetrable Green Zone, the heavily-guarded diplomatic and government area of closed-off streets in central Baghdad, former presidential grounds that include the main palaces of former president Saddam Hussein.

An interior ministry official told Time magazine that the bomber wore a suicide vest and was a guard for a member of Parliament.

The official told Time that the metal detectors at the entrance to the site were not operating Thursday.

US military officials were unable to explain the security breech. Lieutenant Colonel Chris Garver, a US military spokesman in Iraq, told CNN that the international zone is 'safer than many places in Baghdad,' but added: 'We live under the threat of people trying to come in and attack.'