Related: Bin Laden says Iraqi Sunnis being "exterminated" by Shiites

¡¡       Bin Laden urges Islamist fighters to free Iraq

         Death toll rises to 60 in Baghdad car bombing

¡¡BEIJING, July 1 (Xinhuanet) -- Chief of the al-Qaida terror network Osama bin Laden said in a new Internet statement on Saturday that Iraqi Sunni Muslims were being "exterminated" by Shiites after a car bomb devastated a Baghdad market on Saturday, killing more than 60 people.

    

Residents gather at the scene of a car bomb attack at a market in Baghdad's Sadr City district July 1, 2006. (Xinhua/Reuters photo)

"You, God's trusted fighters, will liberate the country (Iraq) from the crusaders," bin Laden said in the audio.

    He also said that Sunni Muslims in Iraq were being "exterminated" by Shiites, warning that Shiite-populated areas might subject to attacks.

    It is bin Laden's second Internet broadcast in two days and one of his strongest comments on sectarian divisions in Iraq.
    
   At least 62 people were killed and 114 wounded, police said, in Saturday morning's blast near the Souq al-Auola market in the heavily populated Sadr City. It was the bloodiest attack in Iraq in three months and by far the deadliest since Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Iraq was killed in a U.S. air strike on June 7.

    Violence has mounted despite the formation of a new unity government in the war-torn country after three years of the U.S.-led invasion. Enditem

    (Agencies)