Already battered and bloodstained from a nine-month insurgency, Iraq faces an escalation of rebel violence with the terror network Al-Qaeda joining forces with Saddam Hussein loyalists, top US military commanders warn.
In a month that has seen suicide bombings strike Baghdad, five US helicopters downed, mainly by hostile fire, 35 US soldiers and scores of Iraqis killed in attacks, the chief of US forces in Iraq predicted worse to come.
General John Abizaid, head of the US Central Command which covers Iraq, said even if calls by Muslim Shiites to stage swift elections were heeded, an escalation in carnage and possibly civil war lay ahead.
"The clear thing I understand as a military commander is - whether we have elections or not - as we move toward an Iraqi sovereign authority, we're going to have increased levels of violence.
"I think that, given a ... bad series of events that pit communities against one another, it would be possible to move toward civil war but I think it is unlikely," he told defence reporters in Washington Thursday.
Abizaid said former members of Saddam's Baath party would stop at nothing to return the former regime, seeking aid from once-reviled foreign extremists to halt Iraq's June 30 return to self-rule.
"There are an awful lot of people that don't want an Iraqi sovereign entity that has any legitimacy or power to emerge," he said.
"And there are still plenty of Baathists that believe that the Baath party can regain its place in Iraq and there are terrorist groups that would hope to make the situation more unstable so their ideological philosophy can emerge victorious in Iraq."
Earlier Thursday, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of coalition ground forces in Iraq, warned that Al-Qaeda was gaining influence in Iraq, with its presence dating back at least three months.
Sanchez told reporters in Baghdad that last week's capture of Hasan Guhl, a Pakistani veteran of Osama bin Laden's terror network, proved the group was stepping up its presence.
"For months I've been saying that Al-Qaeda fingerprints have been here in Iraq. The capture of Guhl is pretty strong proof that Al-Qaeda is trying to gain a foothold here to continue its murderous campaign.
His comments came a day after six people were killed in a suicide bombing outside a Baghdad hotel. On Tuesday, six US soldiers were killed, raising to 246 the number of US troops killed since President George W. Bush declared an end to major military operations May 1.
Sanchez said Al-Qaeda's work in Iraq dated back at least as far as a November 12 truck bombing in the southern city of Nasiriyah that killed 28 people, including 19 Italian soldiers.
He said the organisation, blamed for the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, was adapting to the Iraqi environment and joining forces with elements from Saddam's former regime.
"Their tactics, techniques and procedures have been here for a while ... their operations are evolving," Sanchez said.
Growing unrest in Iraq could prevent a mooted return to the country by the United Nations to study the possibility of holding quick elections.
UN chief Kofi Annan has said the world body, which withdrew staff following a suicide bombing last August, will dispatch a team to study the viability of quick elections, but only if security can be assured.
The coalition has so far opposed the idea of immediate elections to replace its own plan to install an unelected transitional government, saying Iraq lacks the basics and security to hold proper polls.
Sanchez said Thursday his men would be able to provide the protection necessary to safeguard any political process.
Security fears also overshadowed the launch of a new World Bank programme for Iraq, which will oversee donor contributions to the war-shattered country from the safety of neighbouring Jordan.
"Security is an issue that keeps us from operating in Iraq itself," the Bank's vice president for the Middle East, Christiaan Poortman told reporters in Washington.
"We'd like to move back as soon as we can. As soon as we consider it secure we will obviously go back as soon as we can."
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