Rumsfeld sees no quick end to attacks in Iraq

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday he expected remnants of Saddam Hussein's forces to go on attacking US-led troops in Iraq for months but they would ultimately be rooted out.

Since Baghdad fell to the Americans on April 9, 39 US soldiers have been killed by assailants. In the latest fatal incident, an American soldier was shot dead at a checkpoint near the Syrian border late on Sunday.

"Do I think that's going to disappear in the next month or two or three? No. Will it disappear when some two or three divisions of coalition forces arrive in the country? No," Rumsfeld told a news conference in Lisbon.

"It will take time to root out the remnants of the Saddam Hussein regime and we intend to do it."

The US military said yesterday that US troops had staged raids on Monday to crack down on guerilla fighters north of Baghdad, detaining 384 people and suffering four wounded.

With Iraq's political future still in question, a scion of Arabia's Hashemite dynasty, Sharif Ali bin Hussein, returned to Iraq yesterday, 45 years after a revolution toppled the British-backed monarchy and killed his cousin, King Faisal II.

A multinational force that will seek to keep the peace in the devastated country is beginning to take shape. An advance unit of 35 Italian troops flew into the southern city of Basra yesterday.

A Qatari plane with relief supplies also arrived there on what was billed as the first commercial flight to postwar Iraq.

The United States has said its failure to find Saddam Hussein may be emboldening the fallen leader's Baath party supporters to attack US forces in Iraq. The former Iraqi president has not been seen since the fall of Baghdad.

"It might give heart to the Baathists who may want to hope that they can take back that country, which they are not going to succeed in doing," Rumsfeld said late on Monday.