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Iraq's vice president on Saturday threatened more suicide bombings against coalition troops, saying a bomber who killed four U.S. soldiers outside the Iraqi city of Najaf was a noncommissioned army officer.

At a news conference, Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan identified the bomber as Ali Jaafar al-Noamani, a father of several children. A detailed statement on the bombing would be issued later, he said.

"This is just the beginning. You'll hear more pleasant news later," Ramadan said.

Asked whether suicide bombings will now become a policy of the Iraqi military, Ramadan said: "It will be routine military policy. We will use any means to kill our enemy in our land and we will follow the enemy into its land."

The suicide bombing came earlier Saturday at a U.S. checkpoint on the highway north of the city of Najaf, U.S. military officers said. A taxi stopped close to the checkpoint, and the driver waved for help. The soldiers approached the car, and it exploded, Capt. Andrew Wallace told Associated Press Television News.

Wallace said the victims were part of the Army's 1st Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division.

U.S. Central Command in Doha, Qatar, confirmed the incident but had no additional details. Maj. Gen. Victor Renuart said that kind of attack was "a symbol of an organization that's starting to get a little bit desperate."

The suicide bombing was the first against U.S. and British forces since the invasion of Iraq began.

There have been warnings of suicide attacks in Iraq.

Iraqi dissidents and Arab media have claimed that Saddam Hussein has opened a training camp for Arab volunteers willing to carry out suicide bombings against U.S. forces in Iraq. And last month, terror mastermind Osama bin Laden urged Iraqis in an audio tape aired on Arabic television to employ the tactic against the Americans. Other Arab militants also spoke about suicide missions against the invading armies.

Such suicide attacks are common by Palestinian militants in targeting the better equipped Israeli army during the uprising on the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri was asked in a mid-March television interview, whether Iraq would use the tactic of suicide attacks against the invading American forces.

"We have prepared ourselves for all kinds of war. For many months, tens of thousands have volunteered to serve as martyrdom-seekers (suicide attackers) in the battle with the American enemy," he said. "We trained them and readied them. We have prepared ourselves for street fighting and desert fighting."

The biggest suicide bombing against the U.S. military abroad was in Lebanon when a truck packed with explosives drove into the U.S. Marine base at Beirut International Airport and exploded in the early morning Oct. 23, 1983, as the troops slept. The attack killed 241 American servicemen and leveled the base. Simultaneously, a Beirut base for French soldiers was attacked by another suicide bomber, killing 58 paratroopers.

The Americans and the French were in Lebanon as part of an ill-fated peacekeeping mission to end Lebanon's civil war. Iranian-backed Shiite Muslim militants were blamed for the attacks.

In 1996, a truck bomb at the U.S. Khobar Towers barracks in Saudi Arabia killed 19 U.S. servicemen.

photo credit and caption:

Soldiers of Britain's 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment secure their camouflage netting during a sandstorm at their camp in southern Iraq Saturday, March 29, 2003. (AP Photo/PA Pool, Chris Ison.)

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