DUELING CLAIMANTS

So now there are two different groups claiming responsibility for the UN bombing.

Yep - no honor among thieves, as they say.

The latest says it is a member of Al Qaeda.

A statement posted on the Internet in the name of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network has claimed responsibility for an attack on the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad last week that killed 23 people, including the head of mission.
The statement's authenticity could not be verified. On Thursday, an Arabic television channel reported a previously unknown Iraqi group had claimed responsibility for the attack.

Written in heavily symbolic and oblique language, the statement was signed by Brigades of Abu Hafs al-Masri and followed by the words al Qaeda in parentheses.

It referred to a previous warning issued on August 15 in which it said it would "exhaust and confuse" America and its "henchmen."

"We meant that we would carry out such a lethal and surprising attack that the enemy will not know where, when and how we will strike," the statement said.

"So why the United Nations? Number one, the United Nations (is against Islam), it is a branch of the American State Department and it wears the robes of an international organization.

"The double standard policies of the United Nations are against Arabs and Muslims. This issue does not need to be proved. It is clear like the light of the sun at midday," the statement said.

The statement called U.N. envoy to Iraq, Brazilian Sergio Vieira de Mello, "America's number one man."

I'm sorry - did I say two groups? No, I should have said three.

One commits evil, and lots of others want the credit. An apt description of the Arab world from where I sit.

...At least two other unconfirmed claims of responsibility have surfaced.

The first was a statement sent to the Arab television station Al-Arabiya last week, signed by a previously unknown group, the ''Armed Vanguards of the Second Muhammad Army.'' The other was in a tape broadcast Saturday by the Lebanese television station LBC from a group calling itself ''Muhammad's Army.''