Cairo, Egypt ? Al-Qaida in Iraq said Thursday that it fired a barrage of rockets from Lebanon into northern Israel this week, in a rare claim by the group of a direct attack against the Jewish state.

The statement, on an Islamic Web forum where al-Qaida in Iraq often posts statement, could not be independently verified.

Israel blamed Tuesday’s rocket attack on a radical Palestinian militia and bombed one of its bases near Beirut. Israeli officials would not immediately comment on the al-Qaida statement.

The U.S. State Department said it could not immediately confirm the claim.

“A group of al-Qaida lions planned … a new attack on the Jewish state,” the al-Qaida statement said. “The brothers accomplished their mission as it was planned and succeeded in their escape.”

It said the al-Qaida fighters fired 10 rockets into northern Israel.

In Tuesday’s attack, a volley of rockets landed in a residential neighborhood of the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona, causing damage but no casualties.

Israel responded with airstrikes against a base of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, a pro-Syrian Palestinian militia. The PFLP-GC denied firing the rockets, as did other Palestinian factions and the Shiite Hezbollah guerrilla group.

Though it frequently rails against Israel in its propaganda, al-Qaida has rarely launched direct attacks against it.