BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) – Insurgents gunned down a senior Iraqi Interior Ministry official Wednesday and the bodies of seven men shot in the head were found outside Baghdad, part of an escalation in violence that a senior U.S. military official said was called for during a recent meeting in Syria by lieutenants of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The spiraling violence has killed nearly 500 people since the April 28 announcement of the new Shiite-dominated government. Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari recently pledged to use “an iron fist” to prevent an outbreak of sectarian violence – which al-Zarqawi and his al-Qaida in Iraq group have tried to foment.

A senior U.S. military official, who told reporters he did not want to be named after briefing them, said the recent upsurge in violence can be attributed to a meeting in neighboring Syria about a month ago by lieutenants of the Jordanian-born al-Zarqawi, who may have attended.

The meeting was held to try and ramp up terrorist attacks, particularly suicide car bombings, throughout Iraq, the official said.

Al-Zarqawi, according to information obtained by the U.S. military, was angered by a perceived lull in the militant campaign, the official told reporters. His call for increased attacks sparked the deadly wave of violence.

He said there had been 21 car bombings in Baghdad during May, compared with 25 such attacks in the capital in all of 2004.

“There was recently a gathering of insurgents in Syria with al-Zarqawi and his leadership to have some additional discussions or guidance with the insurgents,” the official said.

The official also said the military obtained intelligence from detainees, Iraqi military sources and data from the field to corroborate that the meeting took place in Syria, which the United States has accused of not doing enough to curb the flow of foreign fighters into the country.

“He (al-Zarqawi) allegedly was not happy with how the insurgency was going, the government was getting stronger and coalition forces not being defeated. Some intelligence reports from captives showed that al-Zarqawi directed people to start using more vehicle-borne devices and use them in everyday operations,” the official said.

Al-Zarqawi is Iraq’s most-wanted terrorist and has a $25 million bounty on his head – the same as for Osama bin Laden.

Asked whether he had heard about such a meeting, Iraq’s presidential adviser for security affairs, Gen. Wafiq al-Samarie, said, “I have no information about that.”

In Damascus, officials at Syria’s foreign and information ministries were unavailable for comment.

In an audiotape posted on the Internet Wednesday, al-Zarqawi purportedly denounced Iraq’s Shiites for “collaborating” with the Americans “under a state of apostasy.”

The tape was posted on a Web forum used previously by his group.

U.S. intelligence is aware of the tape and is conducting a technical analysis to verify its authenticity, a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.

Another indication of sectarian tensions came Wednesday, when the leader of the influential Sunni Muslim Association of Muslim Scholars accused a Shiite militia of killing Sunni clerics. There have been numerous killings of clerics – both Shiite and Sunni – in recent weeks.

Harith al-Dhari said he believed the Badr Brigades, the militia of Iraq’s leading Shiite group, the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, was responsible for killing Sunni Muslim clerics.

The brigade’s general secretary, Hadi al-Amri, denied the charge and said the Sunni association was trying to incite sectarian conflict.

The insurgency also was discussed Tuesday during a historic visit to Baghdad by Iran’s foreign minister, who pledged to secure his country’s borders to stop militants from entering Iraq.

Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari also announced plans for his first foreign trip, a two-day visit to neighboring Turkey on Friday and Saturday. The insurgency is expected to top the agenda.

Brig. Gen. Ibrahim Khamas was shot and killed by four gunmen in a four-door sedan as he drove through Baghdad’s southeastern Zaafaraniyah district, police Col. Nouri Abdullah said. Khamas’ wife and driver were wounded. Insurgents last week also killed an Interior Ministry colonel and a Defense Ministry general.

Khamas’ killing purportedly was claimed by al-Qaida in Iraq. A statement posted on an Internet site described Khamas as “one of the heads of apostasy, and one of America’s tails.” The authenticity of the claim, posted on a site that carries similar statements, could not be verified.

Also in Baghdad, a roadside bomb targeting an American military convoy exploded, wounding seven Iraqis, police Lt. Col. Ahmed Aboud Efait said. There were no reports of American casualties, he said.

In the northern city of Mosul, 225 miles northwest of Baghdad, mortar attacks by insurgents killed two Iraqis and injured eight others, including seven school children, police and hospital officials said.

A car bomb also detonated in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, injuring 14 people – including 2 police officers. The parked car blew up as a police convoy drove by in the city center, damaging all the vehicles, police Col. Mudhafar Muhammed said.

Gunmen also shot dead Transport Ministry driver Ali Mutib Sakr in Sadr City, a predominantly Shiite area in eastern Baghdad, police Lt. Col. Shakir Wadi said.

Iraqi soldiers discovered the bodies of seven blindfolded men who were shot in the head and dumped on the roadside in the Sunni Triangle town of Amiriyah, some 25 miles west of Baghdad, said Mohammed al-Ani, a doctor at Ramadi General Hospital.

The violence came a day after Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi said the “situation would have been much worse” in Iraq if Tehran was supporting the insurgency as the United States claims.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said after meeting Kharrazi that militants have infiltrated from Iran “but we are not saying that they are approved by the Iranian government.”

Ties between the neighbors improved after the ouster of Saddam, who led an eight-year war against Iran during the 1980s that killed more than 1 million people. Relations remained cool after that war, with Iran supporting anti-Saddam groups and the former Iraqi leader hosting the Mujahedeen Khalq, an Iranian militia fighting the Shiite religious regime in Tehran.

But since the U.S.-led invasion swept Saddam from power, Iraq’s majority Shiite Muslim community has risen to power and worked to build close ties with Iran.

Iran, however, has been accused of supporting insurgents in Iraq to destabilize reconstruction efforts by the United States, which regards Tehran as a terror sponsor bent on producing nuclear weapons. Iran denies both claims.

Al-Jaafari, who led anti-Saddam militiamen based in Iran during his two-decade exile, has said Iraq now wants positive relations with Iran.

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Associated Press reporter Paul Garwood in Baghdad contributed to this report.

AP-ES-05-18-05 1417EDT

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