Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said today the United States could expect more suicide attacks on its troops following a car bombing which killed four US soldiers at a military checkpoint.
"Any method that stops or kills the enemy will be used. What are they doing in our land? Let them pack and go," Mr Ramadan told a news conference.
Iraq said earlier that Ali Hammadi al-Namani, a junior army officer, had carried out "a martyrdom operation" and that President Saddam Hussein had awarded him two posthumous medals. The attack occurred near the city of Najaf southeast of Baghdad.
"The United States will turn the whole world to martyrs against it. What do they expect? The Arabs and Muslims are not allowed to develop missiles and bombs as powerful as theirs," Mr Ramadan said.
Thousands of Arab volunteers were arriving in Iraq to fight the invading US and British forces, he added.
A US military official said the car was detonated as soldiers from the First Brigade of the Third Infantry Division were searching it.
US Captain Andrew Valles said the man drove up to the checkpoint and waved his hand "indicating he needed some help." Five soldiers moved toward the car. Two trained their rifles on the rear of the vehicle, two on the front and the fifth approached the driver's side.
"As they aproached the car ... he set off the bomb," said Captain Valles, of the division's First Brigade. Iraqi state television said the bomber was an Iraqi army officer seeking to teach American troops a "lesson."
It was not immediately known if the car driver was alone or had been accompanied, he said, adding that US forces were trying to establish how many people had been in the car.
A spokesman at US Central Command in Qatar said: "Four soldiers were killed from the 3rd Infantry Division. Their names have been withheld."
Meanwhile the Coalition bombardment of the Iraqi capital Baghdad continued today. Four large explosions have been heard in the centre of the city after an overnight strike on Iraq's Information Ministry and a marketplace blast that Iraq said killed dozens of civilians.
Air raids pounded the city through the day, with several huge explosions shaking the centre of Baghdad and numerous other blasts on the outskirts, witnesses said.
This morning, reporters found the Information Ministry compound littered with shattered glass.
A missile appeared to have pierced the roof of the main 11-storey ministry building, and aerials and satellite dishes on the roof were broken.
Several explosions were heard in the city after dawn broke today, and others followed during the day - sometimes accompanied by the clatter of anti-aircraft fire.
In the city of Mahmoudiya, about 40 km (25 miles) south of Baghdad, an attack this morning killed one 14-year-old girl when a bomb hit her house as she sat down to breakfast with her family, her father said.
"Is this a clean war, targeting an innocent family and killing some of its number? Is it a clean war?" a distraught Hanin Jasin said after learning of the death of his daughter Samar. "God will damn (U.S. President George W.) Bush." Iraqis said an air raid on a Baghdad market yesterday evening killed dozens of civilians - an incident which will further undermine US efforts to win Iraqi hearts and minds.
Dr Enaam Mohammad of Al Noor hospital told reporters on Saturday the toll in the attack had risen to 62 dead and 49 injured. Abu Dhabi television said US cruise missiles may have hit the market and showed a gaping hole on one street and damaged cars