BAGHDAD, (AFP) – An Al-Qaeda group on Friday claimed it was behind a suicide bombing on a crowded Iraqi army recruitment centre in Baghdad that killed 59 people in the deadliest attack this year, US monitors said

The Islamic State of Iraq said Tuesday’s attack, which coincided with the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, “struck a group of Shiites and ‘apostates’ who sold their faith for money and to be a tool in the war on Iraqi Sunnis,” according to the SITE group which monitors Islamist websites.

The attack, which also wounded at least 100 people, came a day after Iraq’s two main political parties suspended talks over the formation of a new government and ahead of the withdrawal of the final US combat unit from the country.

Baghdad security spokesman Major General Qassim Atta had already blamed the attack on Al-Qaeda.

“The fingerprints of Al-Qaeda are very clear in this attack,” Atta said on Tuesday. “You can see it in the timing, the circumstances, the target and the style of the attack — all the information indicates it was Al-Qaeda behind this.”