Zarqawi death prompts major attack warning

The statement did not name a successor to al-Zarqawi, who was killed in a US airstrike last week. But it said the group's leadership "renews its allegiance" to al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

It vowed "to prepare major attacks that will shake the enemy like an earthquake and rattle them out of sleep."

The authenticity of the statement could not be independently confirmed. It was posted on an Islamic militant Web forum where the group has posted statements in the past.

Earlier a gunbattle erupted as British soldiers responded to a fire in a vegetable market in southern Iraq yesterday, leaving two people dead and a 7-year-old boy injured, police said.

Gunmen started the fire around 7 a.m. in south Amarah, 290km southeast of Baghdad, to lure in coalition forces, Police Capt. Hussein Karim said. The shooting erupted between the gunmen and British soldiers who responded.

In northern Baghdad, a roadside bomb struck an Iraqi police car near a mosque, killing one officer and wounding three others. Drive-by gunmen nearby fired on a civilian car in a separate incident, killing the driver.