Al-Qaida link to bombing probed [View All]

Aug. 8 — The FBI has sent a team to Iraq to lead the investigation into the bombing of the Jordanian Embassy as a group linked to Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaida terror network became a focus of the inquiry, U.S. officials said Friday. The death toll from the blast rose to 19 people, with at least 50 others wounded.

THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION is concerned that Iraqi police do not have the abilities, such as bomb blast analysis, to properly investigate the deadly attack, a senior Justice Department official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

The FBI team, of fewer than a dozen, will mainly secure and analyze evidence at the bombing site and will likely help train Iraqi investigators in the same skills, the official said. It was not known when the team would arrive or how long it would stay.

Authorities are looking at Ansar al-Islam, an al-Qaida-linked group, as a potential suspect, Air Force Lt. Gen. Norton Schwartz, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told U.S.-run Radio Sawa, which broadcasts to the Middle East in Arabic.

“The one organization that we have confidence and that we know is in Iraq and in the Baghdad area is Ansar al-Islam,” he said. “It is unknown whether this particular organization was associated with the . Perhaps that’ll become clear as we go down the road.

“But that is an al-Qaida-related organization and one that we are focusing attention on,” Schwartz said.

MSNBC