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IRAQ is slipping into all-out civil war, a Shia leader declared yesterday, as a devastating onslaught of suicide bombers slaughtered more than 150 people, most of them Shias, around the capital at the weekend.

One bomber killed almost 100 people when he blew up a fuel tanker south of Baghdad, an attack aimed at snapping Shia patience and triggering the full-blown sectarian war that al-Qaeda has been trying to foment for almost two years.

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raq’s security forces have been overwhelmed by the scale of the suicide bombings — 11 on Friday alone and many more over the weekend — ordered by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

“What is truly happening, and what shall happen, is clear: a war against the Shias,” Sheikh Jalal al-Din al-Saghir, a prominent Shia cleric and MP, told the Iraqi parliament.

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LONDON (AFP) - British Prime Minister
Tony Blair came under fresh pressure for supporting the
Iraq war after a respected think-tank linked the invasion to Britain's worst terror attack in which at least 55 people died.

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The Royal Institute of International Affairs, known as Chatham House, concluded in a report that the war in Iraq gave a "boost" to Al-Qaeda and made Britain especially vulnerable to attacks -- a theory that clashed with Blair's belief that there is no link with the July 7 bombings.

"There is no doubt that the situation over Iraq has imposed particular difficulties for the UK, and for the wider coalition against terrorism," said the London-based research centre in its study, "Riding Pillion for Tackling Terrorism is a High-risk Policy".

"It gave a boost to the Al-Qaeda network's propaganda, recruitment and fundraising," Chatham House said, arguing that it also provided an ideal training area for Al-Qaeda-linked terrorists and deflected resources that could have gone to help bring terror mastermind
Osama bin Laden to justice.

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