BAGHDAD, Feb 9: A militant linked to the Al Qaeda network has plotted a series of attacks in Iraq aimed at provoking sectarian violence and a civil war, the US-led occupation authority said on Monday.

Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt, top US military spokesman in Iraq, said US forces had seized a letter outlining the plan that they attribute to Abu Musab Zarqawi, whom Washington suspects in the killing of a US diplomat in Jordan in 2002 and of links to Ansar al Islam, a militant group operating in Iraq.

"We believe the document is credible and we take the threat seriously," Brig Kimmitt said at a news conference in Baghdad. "There is clearly a plan on the part of outsiders to come into this country and spark civil war, breed sectarian violence and try to expose fissures in the society," he said. "We are persuaded that Zarqawi was the author of the letter."

In October, the United States offered a reward of up to five million dollars for information leading to the arrest or conviction of Abu Zarqawi, who was sentenced to death in absentia by a Jordanian court last year for plotting attacks against US and Israeli targets.

He is also suspected of orchestrating the murder of US diplomat Laurence Foley in the Jordanian capital in Oct 2002. US officials say last month's arrest in Iraq of Hassan Ghul, who they say reported to the operative responsible for the Sept 11, 2001, attacks, shows Al Qaeda is trying to get a foothold in the country.

Dan Senor, chief spokesman for Iraq's US governor Paul Bremer, alleged said the 17-page letter proposed attacks on the shrines and leadership of the Shias.

"The document...talks about a strategy of provoking violence targeted at the the Shia leaders in the hope that it would provoke reprisals against other ethnic groups in the country, all focused on provoking ethnic, sectarian warfare," he said. -Reuters