US warns of upsurge in Iraq attacks

The top US general in Iraq warned yesterday of an upsurge in attacks in the months before Washington hands over sovereignty in June, as insurgents killed an American soldier in a roadside bomb attack in the north.

Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez also urged Iraqis to help find fugitive former dictator Saddam Hussein - whom he called a needle in a haystack - and said US forces would keep up their offensive against insurgents using any weapon at their disposal.

"We expect to see an increase in violence as we move forward towards sovereignty at the end of June. We're going to have some periods where there will be an increase in violence in the coming months," Mr Sanchez told a news conference.

In the latest fatal attack on US forces, guerillas blew apart a Humvee with a roadside bomb in the northern city of Mosul, killing one American soldier and wounding two.

They staged the ambush a day after US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited and said operations were on the right path.

"We heard an explosion and ran towards it. I saw four US soldiers lying on the ground, with their Humvee destroyed," Mosul policeman Hamid Saleh said.

Mr Sanchez said insurgents would seek to derail the handover of power, partly by attacking the political process itself.