IRAQI RESISTANCE

Aljazeera: Iraqi Resistance Looks Set To Intensify

Spin doctors are well aware it is easier to sell a simple lie than tell a complex, often uncomfortable, truth.

That is why the United States dismisses armed resistance to its occupation of Iraq as "terrorism - pure and simple".

Since the start of the US-led occupation of Iraq in April Washington has been at pains to characterise attacks against its forces as the work of Saddam loyalists.

As recently as June, Paul Bremer, Iraq's occupation administrator, told a Congressional subcommittee the resistance was coming from remnants of the Baath party and the Republican Guard.

But since then he has changed his tune, and this week he sounded his first note of alarm over the presence of Islamist groups.

Bremer admission

"Starting in July, we saw them begin to regroup and come back in. There's no question we have scores of Ansar al-Islam and al-Qaida terrorists here. And we have problems, particularly at the Syrian border of people still coming into the country," he said.

Iraqi analysts like Salman al-Jumaili, doctor of political science at Baghdad University, agree.

Al-Jumali has studied the backgrounds of resistance fighters killed in combat.

"You will find that the vast majority of them are Islamists - I mean Sunni and Shia Muslims - who are fighting for the sole purpose of pushing America out of Iraq," he told Aljazeera net.