Group claiming to have killed 9 U.S. troops issues threats

A group said to be affiliated with Al Qaeda claimed responsibility Tuesday for a suicide attack that killed nine U.S. soldiers and wounded 20 others in one of the deadliest single attacks against American troops in Iraq.

The Islamic State of Iraq, a coalition of Sunni Arab-led militant groups, posted an Internet message pledging to launch additional attacks. The claims could not be verified. The group also boasted that it had developed “new strategies for explosions” that would allow it to penetrate U.S. and Iraqi security. This month, the group also took responsibility for a deadly attack inside the Iraqi parliament building in Baghdad’s heavily guarded Green Zone.

Monday’s strike against a U.S. base in restive Diyala province was the latest violence to hit the region north and east of Baghdad since a U.S.-Iraqi security crackdown launched Feb. 13 in Iraq’s capital. Some militants have reportedly fled Baghdad and regrouped in Diyala’s capital, Baqubah, and other areas in the province.

Two weeks ago in Muqdadiya, northeast of Baqubah, a female suicide bomber killed 19 police applicants waiting to hear whether they had been accepted. In January, U.S. forces launched a massive sweep of the southern part of the province, killing more than 100 suspected insurgents.

As part of the Bush administration’s new security plan, U.S. and Iraqi forces have fanned out to smaller, local outposts, allowing them to better protect communities, but also making them more vulnerable to attack. The U.S. base attacked Monday was in a converted schoolhouse.

Since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003, only about half a dozen single incidents have produced as many American military deaths as the one Monday. They include a December 2005 attack in which 10 Marines on foot near Fallouja were killed and 11 wounded by a powerful makeshift bomb. And in August 2005, 14 Marines and a civilian interpreter were killed by a roadside bomb near Haditha.

Monday’s attack involved two truck bombs in a coordinated attack along with gunfire, the military said. The first detonation targeted the base’s outer barrier, and the second occurred about 30 yards from the school building. Military officials said neither attacker penetrated an inner security zone, but the force of the second explosion collapsed the building’s second floor, causing most of the casualties.

Previous attempted car bomb attacks against U.S. bases have rarely succeeded because of the heavy security that has usually surrounded American forces.

Witnesses reported hearing a massive explosion, followed by gunfire and a second blast. The first bomb was so loud, one nearby farmer said, that “it brought God down to the ground.”

The Islamic State of Iraq is believed to be the same group behind the April 12 suicide attack inside the cafeteria of Iraq’s parliament building that killed a lawmaker. Investigators are still trying to determine how the bomber infiltrated Green Zone security. Preliminary findings point to the bodyguard of a parliament member.

Victims of the Monday afternoon attack were attached to the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne Division, based in Ft. Bragg, N.C. Their names have not yet been released. “This is a sad, gut-wrenching day for everyone in the division,” said Maj. Thomas Earnhardt, a spokesman for the 82nd Airborne.

Officials at Ft. Bragg said it was the most devastating attack on the 82nd Airborne Division since the Vietnam War, when 12 paratroopers were ambushed and killed in June 1969.

One more U.S. soldier was killed Monday in Al Anbar province as a result of hostile fire, the military announced Tuesday.

The incidents bring to 3,333 the total number of American troops who have died in the Iraq war and make April the deadliest month for U.S. forces since the security crackdown began, according to the website icasualties.org, which tracks deaths and injuries in the Iraq conflict. In all, 207 U.S. soldiers have died since Feb. 13, compared with 225 during the 71-day period before the campaign.

Elsewhere in Iraq on Tuesday, a suicide truck bomb exploded near a police checkpoint outside the western insurgent stronghold of Ramadi, killing nearly 30 people, police said.

In Baghdad, a car bomb killed one Iraqi and wounded six near a congested intersection close to the Iranian Embassy and an entrance to the Green Zone.

Two commuters were killed by a bomb hidden inside a shopping bag left under a bus seat in the northern part of the capital. And 10 civilians were killed in a marketplace in southern Baghdad in an evening mortar attack that badly damaged a mosque.

In the southern city of Diwaniya, an Iraqi policeman was shot to death and another wounded in a clash with Iraqi troops at a checkpoint. Police sources said soldiers deliberately shot the policeman in the back, but army officials characterized the shooting as an accident.

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edmund.sanders@latimes.com

Times staff writers Jenny Jarvie in Atlanta, Tina Susman and Mohammed Rasheed in Baghdad and special correspondents in Ramadi, Baqubah and Baghdad contributed to this report.