BAGHDAD (AFP) – Three car bombs and an assassination attempt against a moderate Shiite MP have jolted Baghdad one day after a devastating car explosion in a busy market in the capital killed at least 66.

The stepped-up violence in the capital Sunday came as Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, in an Internet audiotape attributed to him, warned of retaliation against Iraqi Shiites, who he said have been waging a campaign of “genocide” against Sunnis.

It also coincided with a visit by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, a Shiite, to neighbouring Sunni Arab-dominated Saudi Arabia to garner its support for his national reconciliation plan.

Three car bombs went off in Baghdad’s central Karradah district killing at least three people and wounding 16 according to a preliminary toll provided by a security official.

One of the explosions was directed against a police patrol in the area’s busy Arasat street killing a policeman and wounding three civilians.

In nearby Hurriyah square in the Jadriyah neighbourhood a roadside bomb exploded in the path of a convoy carrying Iyad Jamaleddin, a turbaned Shiite MP with the Iraqi National List parliamentary bloc of former premier Iyad Allawi.

That attack wounded three passersby said a security official.

Jamaleddin had called recently for reconciliation with members of the former ruling Baath party of ousted leader Saddam Hussein, a position strongly opposed by hardline Shiites in parliament and Maliki’s government.

The attempt on his life came a day after Taiseer Najeh Awad al-Mashhadani, an MP from the National Concord Front, the largest Sunni Arab bloc in parliament, was seized in Baghdad along with eight of her bodyguards.

The audiotape voice purported to be bin Laden’s accused Maliki of being “treacherous and apostate” and called for the punishment of Shiite leaders who “lied to the people by telling them that participation in the political process is the way to drive out the occupiers,” he added.

“The unarmed Muslims in the Land of Two Rivers are subjected to a campaign of genocide at the hands of the gangs of grudge and treachery,” the speaker said in a reference to Shiites.

The new statement was posted after the CIA authenticated another message by the fugitive Al-Qaeda leader released on Thursday in which he warned that jihad, or holy war, would go on in Iraq despite the killing of the network’s frontman Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a US air raid last month.

Saturday’s massive bomb exploded as a police patrol passed through Al-Ula market in Sadr City, which was packed with morning shoppers, killing at least 66 people and wounding 98.

It was the deadliest attack since a suicide bomber killed 67 people and wounded 105 at a police recruitment center in the insurgent bastion of Ramadi, west of Baghdad, on January 5.

Sadr City, a sprawling Shiite district and a stronghold of Mehdi Army militiamen loyal to radical leader Moqtada Sadr, has been a repeated target for Sunni Arab insurgents amid mounting sectarian violence.

An unknown Sunni insurgent group claimed responsibility for Saturday’s attack.

“Your mujahedeen brethren in ‘the Supporters of the Sunni Community’ decided to teach the Rawafidh (a derogatory term for Shiites) a lesson they will not forget as long as they are alive,” said a statement on an Internet website.

Following the attack Mehdi militiamen threatened to take over patrolling the district.

The violence was a reminder of the precarious security situation in the capital despite a massive security clampdown that has seen more than 60,000 US and government troops patrolling Baghdad streets in recent weeks.

It also comes a week after Maliki launched a national reconciliation plan aimed at stemming the sectarian violence and wooing rebels into the political process.

Maliki was in Jeddah Saturday as part of his tour of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait to garner support for his peace plan.

“I assure you of … (Saudi Arabia’s) full support for you and your constitutional government,” Crown Prince Sultan Abdul Aziz said after meeting Maliki.

Saudi militants are among the top four nationalities of foreign fighters flocking to Iraq according to the US military and many in Maliki’s camp are suspicious of Riyadh’s true intentions towards the ascent of the once-oppressed Shiite majority in Iraq.

As part of Maliki’s plan, 495 detainees were released Saturday bringing to 3,000 the number of those freed since he first floated on June 6 the idea of pardoning those who have committed no violent crimes.