Al-Qaida claim responsibility

YESTERDAY’s events came as a statement posted on an Islamic website in the name of an al-Qaida-linked group claimed responsibility for Thursday’s failed attacks.

The group, Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigade, also claimed responsibility for the July 7 bombings which killed 52 people and four suicide bombers.

The statement’s authenticity could not be immediately verified.

“Our strikes in the depths of the capital of the British infidels are only a message to other European governments that we will not relent and sit idle before the infidel soldiers will leave the land of the two rivers,” said the statement.

The “two rivers” refer to Iraq’s Euphrates and Tigris rivers. On Tuesday, another statement was issued in the name of the same group threatening to launch “a bloody war” on the capitals of European countries that do not remove their troops from Iraq within a month.