BAGHDAD - Iraqi insurgents linked with al Qaeda claimed responsibility for bombings that killed 112 people this week and said their campaign of violence would continue, according to an Islamist website.

The young men of Islam ... set off to target the citadels of evil, the nests of infidelity and the centres of the rejectionist (Shi'ite) government, the Islamic State of Iraq said.

We are determined to uproot this government and pull down its pillars and target its points of strength. The list of targest will not end until the banner of one God is once again raised over Baghdad..., the statement, dated December 9, said, using language often used by Sunni Muslim radicals.

The group said it had targeted the Labour and Finance Ministries and judicial buildings in its third wave of attacks. The authenticity of the claim could not be verified.

Tuesday's attacks wounded 425 people, when four car bombs ripped through the Iraqi capital. Health Ministry officials said 77 people died but police sources put the toll higher at 112.

The same group previously claimed responsibility for twin suicide bombings on October 25 at the Justice Ministry and Baghdad governorate headquarters that killed 155 people, and for two others on August 19 that killed 95 people at two other ministries.

Al Qaeda and other Sunni militant groups have targeted Iraq's Shi'ites since the majority sect in Iraq rose to prominence after the U.S.-led invasion of 2003.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shi'ite who leads a Shi'ite-dominated government, condemned on Wednesday what he said was foreign support for the bombings.

Jihad al-Jabiri, head of the Interior Ministry's ordnance department, said the militants belonged to al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein's outlawed Baath Party and had backing from Syria, Saudi Arabia or another government.

(Writing by Ayla Jean Yackley and Andrew Hammond in Dubai; Editing by Dominic Evans)

Iraq