Iraq Qaeda leader vows revenge over rape - Web

DUBAI, Feb 23 (Reuters) The leader of al Qaeda's wing in Iraq vowed militants would avenge a Sunni woman who said she had been raped by members of Iraq's Shi'ite-dominated police, according to an audio tape posted on the Internet.

''More than 300 militants asked to go on martyrdom (suicide) operations in the first 10 hours of hearing the news,'' said the speaker on the tape identified as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, also known as Abu Ayyub al-Masri.

It was the first recording purported to be from Masri since some Iraqi officials said he had been wounded in a clash last week. The U S military said it had no indication he had been hurt.

Charges by a Sunni woman in Baghdad that she had been raped by the policemen have set off a political furore in Iraq and highlighted the growing friction between the two sects. A second woman has accused soldiers of attacking her in her home in northern Iraq.

''(Government leaders) have cheated the nation and committed so much treason that honour is being violated in the name of politics,'' said the speaker yesterday.

The authenticity of the 12-minute recording, entitled ''To your rescue, sister'' could not be verified but it was posted on a Web site often used by Islamists.

A group called Islamic State in Iraq, which includes Sunni Islamist al Qaeda and several minor insurgent groups, earlier vowed an ''earth-shaking response'' to the alleged rapes. The group is blamed for some of the worst bombings in Iraq.

The mayor of the northern city of Tal Afar said an army officer and three soldiers had been detained in connection with the second rape case.

Masri, an Egyptian, assumed the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq after Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a U S air strike in June 2006.

The U S military has described him as a close Zarqawi associate who trained in Afghanistan and formed al Qaeda's first cell in Baghdad. The United States has put a 5 million dollar bounty on Masri's head.

REUTERS PDS RN0450