Al-Qaeda claims hand in deadly Iraq attacks

Al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for deadly attacks Three blasts ripped through a town in Diyala governorate in central east Iraq on Monday wounding at least 14 people, as Al-Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for deadly attacks in Baghdad and Basra .
Iraqi police sources told ‘Arabstoday’ that the almost simultaneous bombings took place in Balad Ruz town, to the east of Baaquba, the major city in Diyala.
The wounded were rushed to nearby hospitals as law enforcers started investigating the attacks, the sources added.
Meanwhile, Al-Qaeda's front group in Iraq stated that they were behind the two deadliest attacks took place in Baghdad and Basra last month.
A statement by Al-Qaeda's Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) on Monday claimed responsibility for the bloody attack in January 5 in Baghdad and outside the southern city of Nasiriyah that killed 78 people.
The second came nine days later in a blast near the southern city of Basra. At least 53 people were killed.
On Sunday the organisation claimed responsibility for the assassination last month of a former senior leader of the jihadist group who defected.
"One of the (ISI) security patrols followed the criminal in the Awakening of Hypocrisy, known as Mullah Nadhim Al-Juburi, when he went out from the Green Zone," a post on the Honein jihadist Internet forum attributed to ISI said, referring to the Sahwa (Awakening) anti-Qaeda militia Juburi joined.
"One of the heroes swooped down on him with a silenced gun" and shot him dead, the post said.
Juburi was the leader of ISI's fighters in Duluiyah, a predominantly Sunni Arab town 90 kilometres (55 miles) north of Baghdad, before cutting ties with the group in May 2008.
He then became a leader of the Sahwa, a US-backed militia formed from Sunni tribesmen and former insurgents who turned away from Al-Qaeda from late 2006 onwards, helping turn the tide against Iraq's insurgency.
Juburi, 34, who worked with the national reconciliation commission, was killed after he made remarks on Iraqi television about how ISI had made key changes to its leadership.
Several messages on the Honein forum posted shortly before his death had warned that Juburi's "days are numbered."