A group led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said on Tuesday it had tried to kill Iraqi Shi’ite leader Abdel Aziz al-Hakim and warned of more attempts on his life, according to an Internet statement. “On Monday, a lion from the martyrs’ brigade of the Qaeda Organisation of Holy War in Iraq launched an attack on one of the apostates and traitors. Hakim, we tell you that if the arrow has failed to strike you, there are other arrows in our pouch,” the statement said.

Hakim, head of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), survived a suicide car bombing on Monday, which killed 13 people and injured 53. He heads a Shi’ite list expected to dominate next month’s election, and is likely to play a major role in Iraq’s future. Zarqawi’s group also claimed in Web statements on Tuesday an assassination attempt on an Iraqi general, but distanced itself from an earlier attack on the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad.

“A lion from the martyrs’ brigade of the Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq attacked the house of the apostate head of the National Guard,” one statement said. But the group said in another statement that it was not responsible for a fuel tanker explosion near the Jordanian embassy, which killed nine people. The attack appeared to have been a suicide attack on the embassy. An audio tape purportedly from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, which Al Jazeera television aired on Monday, backed Zarqawi as the network’s leader in Iraq and urged Muslims to wage holy war on US forces and the government in Iraq.