A statement apparently from top al-Qaeda operative Abu Musab al-Zarqawi claimed responsibility Monday for a suicide boat attack on Iraq's Basra oil terminal at the weekend and vowed more attacks on coalition targets.  

"We give you good tidings ... your brothers with their boats targeted oil tankers in Mina al-Amiq and Mina al-Bakr," said the statement signed by Zarqawi and published on Muntada al-Ansar Islamist Web site.

Basra terminal, previously known as Mina al-Bakr, accounts for 85 percent of Iraq's crude exports.

Three US navy sailors died in the attack by bombers in three boats who blew themselves up in and around the Basra terminal zone, one of the most heavily guarded facilities of its kind in the world.

Zarqawi is widely believed to be in Iraq. Washington suspects suicide bomb attacks on Shi'ites in Baghdad and Kerbala were masterminded by Zarqawi to try to spark civil war there.

It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the statement posted on the Web site, which has previously carried statements attributed to Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda.

The statement compared the attack on the Basra terminal to the bombing in 2000 of the US warship Cole in Yemen's Aden port which killed 17 US sailors and which was blamed on al-Qaeda.

"As what your brothers, the al-Qaeda lions, did to the destroyer Cole in Aden port, they have repeated this attack in a new garb and with stubborn determination by striking vital economic links of the infidel and atheist states which came to raise the Christian banner in Muslim countries," it said.

"We tell you enemies of God, robbers of oil and riches and drug traders ... O snakes of evil, we will exterminate and debilitate you by land, sea and air until God makes us victorious or until we die," the statement added.

Iraq is almost completely dependent on the Basra terminal to provide revenue. Iraqi and US officials said southern oil infrastructure remained secure despite the thwarted attacks and that oil exports from Basra terminal had resumed Sunday.

The statement mentioned a visit to Iraq by Australian Prime Minister John Howard Sunday to see some of Australia's troops who are mostly involved in diplomatic protection, air traffic control at Baghdad airport and training the Iraqi army and navy.

Howard, a firm US ally, attended services for Anzac Day, the day Australians and New Zealanders remember their war dead.

The statement said the "wicked" Australian prime minister "rushed" to the site of the boat attack to "see what happened to his troops."

The message said strikes against US-led forces in Iraq would not stop. "Let the whole world hear this: We have brought you a people who love death just as you love life ... and there will be many attacks and operations, God willing."

(China Daily April 27, 2004)