Dubai, March 3 (Reuters): A letter purporting to come from Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida network denied any role in yesterday’s anti-Shia explosions in Iraq and blamed the attacks that killed 185 people on the United States.

The letter, signed by the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades with “al Qaida” in parenthesis, was sent to the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper. A copy of the letter was obtained by Reuters today.

The newspaper has previously received similar letters from the same brigade in which they claimed responsibility for a November bombing of two synagogues in Turkey and the August bombing of the UN headquarters in Baghdad. “US troops have committed a massacre against the innocent Shia people to set sectarianism ablaze among Iraq’s Muslims,” the letter said.

“We, and with God as our witness, say we are innocent of this act and of anything that will drive the Shias away. Our mujahideen (holy warriors) love God and his prophet and will not do anything that will harm the Iraqi people.”

Suicide bombers, mortars and concealed explosives killed at least 185 people and wounded more than 435 in Baghdad and Karbala during the holy Shia mourning period of Ashura. The attacks on the mass gatherings made yesterday the bloodiest day since US troops toppled Saddam Hussein in April.

Iraq’s governing council blamed the blasts on Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian who Washington says works for al Qaida and whom it accuses of trying to fuel chaos in Iraq. Some Shia clerics said the attacks were the work of Sunni extremists who want to foment a civil war in Iraq. But in the letter, the Abu Hafs brigades said they only target “Crusader Americans and their lackeys, the Iraqi police”.

Iran warning

Iran today urged its citizens to halt religious pilgrimages to Iraq as it prepared to receive dozens of Iranians killed in the blasts yesterday. Some 29 Iranians were among at least 185 people killed in Baghdad and Karbala, Iranian state television reported. Ali Asghar Ahmadi, deputy interior minister for security affairs, called on Iranians to refrain from travelling to Shia sites in Iraq due to security concerns.

”The Haj organisation will announce official convoys to the holy Iraqi cities in the future,” he told the official IRNA news agency.

”We also strike at the agents of America in the Council of Infidels (Governing Council) and all the other allies it uses to hit at the mujahideen,” it added.

The letter also called on the people of Iraq to wage war against their U.S. occupiers and urged them to keep away from areas frequented by the“infidels and apostates”.