New al Qaeda head in Iraq named

BAGHDAD - Al Qaeda in Iraq has named its new leader overnight following the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by US bombs last week.

It said it would keep up a campaign of beheadings and suicide bombings under Abu Hamza al-Muhajir.

The warning came on a day when violence, including two car bombs, killed at least 34 people.

In the worst attack, a bomb killed at least 10 people at a market in the upscale Mansour district of western Baghdad.

"The shura council of al Qaeda in Iraq unanimously agreed on Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajir to be a successor to Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi," said a statement signed by al Qaeda and posted on a website frequently used by Islamist militants.

"Sheikh Abu Hamza al-Muhajir is a good brother, has a history in jihad and is knowledgeable. We ask God that he ... continue what Sheikh Abu Musab began," it said.

Muhajir was not among the names al Qaeda experts had expected to succeed Zarqawi, a Sunni militant who US and Iraqi officials said was seeking to spark a sectarian civil war.

Al Qaeda makes up just 5 per cent of the Sunni Arab insurgency but its suicide bombers have mounted the most spectacular violence, sometimes killing over 100 people in a single attack.

Although US and Iraqi leaders have hailed Zarqawi's death in an American air strike as a major blow against al Qaeda, no one has suggested the 500-pound bombs that ended his life would halt the violence ravaging Iraq.

Earlier, a source in the prime minister's office said Iraq was considering inviting members of insurgent groups to national reconciliation talks.

A committee of government officials and political groups will try to agree on a definition of "resistance", he said.

If they agree, members of some insurgent groups will be invited to take part in the talks on July 22.

Shi'ite Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has rejected the idea of dialogue with Saddam Hussein loyalists and other hardline groups, saying they have Iraqi blood on their hands.

But Sunni officials say he can deliver on promises of national reconciliation only if he opens dialogue with groups leading the insurgency.

"They (the government) must talk to everybody and when we say everybody, we mean everybody," said Abdul Hadi al-Zubeidi, a Sunni politician.

Al Qaeda, far more extreme than any other militant or insurgent group, is comprised of Iraqis and Arab militants who travel to Iraq to wage what they see as a holy war against US occupation troops and anyone linked to them.

Al Qaeda expert Fares bin Houzam said Muhajir could be a pseudonym for Egyptian militant Abu Ayyub al-Masri, who US officials have said could succeed Zarqawi, or Saudi-born Sheikh Abu Hafs al-Qarni, whom al Qaeda named as Zarqawi's deputy last year in an internet statement later retracted.

- REUTERS