DUBAI, May 14 (Reuters) - The al Qaeda-led Islamic State in Iraq group claimed responsibility on Monday for a suicide truck bombing that killed 50 people in a relatively peaceful town in the north.

In a statement posted on a Web site used by Iraqi insurgents, the group said Sunday's attack had targeted the headquarters of the National Guard and Kurdish Peshmerga forces in the town of Makhmour.

"One of the lions of the Islamic State in Iraq penetrated the headquarters in the Makhmour area south of Mosul," the group said. Makhmour is just outside the autonomous Kurdish region. The attack was the second in Kurdish areas in northern Iraq in four days.

The group has said it was behind a truck bomb on Wednesday in the city of Arbil, capital of Kurdistan, in which 15 people were killed.

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