Baghdad (ANTARA News/AFP) - The Al-Qaeda affiliate in Iraq has claimed responsibility for a suicide attack on a military barracks in northern Iraq that killed 11 troops, the SITE monitoring group reported on Monday.

The Islamic State of Iraq claimed in a statement posted on jihadist websites that the base in Diyala was involved in an alleged Iraqi government plot to murder Sunnis in the restive province, the US-based monitoring group said.

It said that the aim of the alleged plot was to turn the multi-religious Diyala province into a Shiite-majority region.

"One of the lions of the Islamic State launched his car bomb and targeted one of the headquarters of the pagan army, located in a compound of governmental buildings in the area of Kanaan in Diyala province," SITE quoted the statement as saying.

"The brother executor managed to bypass the security perimeter, break into the site and detonate the vehicle in the inner courtyard" of the base, the statement said, according to SITE.

The March 14 attack killed 11 troops, and destroyed buildings at the base.

Kanaan is situated some 10 kilometres (seven miles) east of Baquba, the chief town of Diyala province, a former Al-Qaeda stronghold which remains one of the most violent in Iraq because of strong ethnic and religious differences. (*)

Editor: Kunto Wibisono
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