Najaf (Iraq), Aug 30: Iraqi police have arrested four men in connection with the bombing of Iraq's most holy Shiite Muslim shrine, and all four have connections to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terror network, a senior police official told the press today. The official, who said the death toll in the bombing had risen to 107, said the four arrested men -- two Iraqis and two Saudis -- were caught shortly after the car bombing that also killed one of the most important Shiite clerics in Iraq. The dead Cleric, Ayatollah Mohammed Baqir al-Hakim, had been cooperating with the American occupation force. The police official, who lead the initial investigation and interrogation of the captives, said the prisoners told of other plots to kill political and religious leaders and to damage vital installations such as electricity generation plants, water supplies and oil pipelines. The official, who refused to be named, said the bomb at the Imam Ali shrine -- the burial place of the son-in-law of the prophet Muhammad -- was made from the same type of materials used in the Aug 19 bombing at the UN Headquarters in Baghdad, in which at least 23 people died, and the Jordanian embassy attack on Aug 7. Nineteen people died in that vehicle bombing.
The police official said the men arrested after the attack claimed the recent bombings were designed to "keep Iraq in a state of chaos so that police and American forces are unable to focus attention" on the country's porous borders, across which suspected foreign fighters are said to be infiltrating. Bureau Report