Al Qaeda in Iraq chooses Zarqawi successor

BAGHDAD, June 12 (Reuters) Al Qaeda in Iraq today named a successor to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and said he would pursue the gruesome campaign of suicide bombings and beheadings begun by the Jordanian militant killed last week.

''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 Web site 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, little known in the West, was not among the names that al Qaeda experts had expected to succeed Zarqawi.

Al Qaeda makes up about five per cent of Iraq's Sunni Arab insurgency but its suicide bombers have been responsible for 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 will halt the violence in Iraq.

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

Leaders will meet to agree a definition of ''resistance'' groups and then some of their members 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.

QAEDA RAID Al Qaeda is far more extreme than any other militant or insurgent group.

It 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.

The US military said US-led forces killed seven militants with links to senior al Qaeda leaders in a raid today near the area where Zarqawi was killed.

''Following the assault, coalition troops discovered two children had been killed. One child was wounded and evacuated for treatment,'' it said in a statement.

A senior US military spokesman, Major General William Caldwell, said the gunmen had the children with them on a roof and described the deaths, which included a six-month-old boy and another child, as ''extremely unfortunate''.

Zarqawi lived for almost an hour after the first US bomb struck his hideout north of Baghdad last Wednesday, Caldwell said.

''This (his death) was approximately 24 minutes after the coalition forces arrived and approximately 52 minutes after the first strike on the safe house,'' he told a news conference.

Caldwell said a US medic treated Zarqawi as he lapsed in and out of consciousness and bled through the nose.

A US medical officer, Colonel Stephen Jones, told the same briefing Zarqawi died from the blast waves caused the bombs, adding that he must have been in an enclosed space.

US and Iraqi forces have carried out 140 operations against suspected insurgents in the last 48 hours, killing 32 and detaining 178, said Caldwell.

Eleven of those were launched based on intelligence gathered in the operation that killed Zarqawi, he said.

But violence kept raging. In just some of the bloodshed, a roadside bomb aimed at a bus taking workers to Iraq's Industry Ministry killed six people and wounded 12 on Monday, official sources said.

Gunmen shot dead two civilians on the road from Kirkuk to Tikrit, north of Baghdad, police sources said.

REUTERS SY ND2132