WASHINGTON: Iraqi insurgents have shown improved co-ordination and greater tactical sophistication in a new surge of attacks following a sharp decline after national elections in January, US defence officials said yesterday.

The increased violence comes amid a stalemate over the formation of a new Iraqi government, which US officials worry is dissipating an opportunity opened by the January 30 elections to undercut support for the insurgency.

Attacks fell from about 90 a day before the elections to about 40 a day for several weeks after the vote, Pentagon officials said. But then about two weeks ago the number of attacks rose to about 50 a day.

More significant than the number of attacks is that the insurgent attacks are better co-ordinated than in the past and more sophisticated, said a senior defence official, who asked not to be identified.

Moreover, he said, members of the former regime have been re-establishing links with foreign fighters led by militants such as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

He said there was “a definite coincidence of interests” between the two.

Defence officials point to several co-ordinated attacks involving unusually large numbers of insurgents, and in some case multiple suicide car bombs, as examples of the new tactics.

The first was what military officials described as a well-coordinated ambush south of Baghdad on March 20 on a US military convoy by some 40 to 50 insurgents firing rocket propelled grenades and small arms. Seven US soldiers were wounded. US officials said 26 rebels were killed.

On April 2, the Abu Ghraib prison was assaulted at night by 50-60 guerrillas. The attack opened with a car bomb on one side of the prison, followed by mortar, rocket propelled grenade and small arms fire, and punctuated by a second car bomb on the other side of the prison.

Officials said 44 US soldiers and 12 prisoners were wounded.

On April 11, 40-50 insurgents struck a US military outpost in the western city of Al Qaim near the Syrian border, detonating three suicide car bombs. Three marines were reported wounded and the insurgents nearly breached the compound with a car bomb.

A Pentagon official noted that two attacks over the last couple of days each featured double car bombings.

US commanders have played down the attacks as “desperate acts by desperate individuals.”

A violent new phase of the insurgency could set back US hopes for making significant reductions in its 142,000-strong force next year.

“There is a heightened level of interest because this clearly discernable down trend (in attacks) has changed in the last couple of weeks,” the Pentagon official said.

“Does it indicate more planning, more coordination, more sophistication on the part of insurgents? Or is it attributable to some other factor?” he said.

The official suggested that one factor could be a slackening by the Iraqi security forces as they await the new government.

In the latest violence, rebels struck at the vital oil industry, setting fire to pipelines in northern Iraq, and the US military said yesterday one its soldiers had died in a roadside explosion northwest of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, a senior State Department official said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice had urged the Iraqis to end their political stalemate in a telephone call on Friday to Kurdish chief Massoud Barzani.

The official also said Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney pressed for quick action on the government impasse at a meeting here on Friday with one of Iraq’s new vice presidents, Shia leader Adil Abdul Mahdi.

“She (Rice) encouraged them to move on to the next phase,” said the US official, who asked not to be named.

He spoke as Iraqi leaders acknowledged they had failed again to agree on an interim coalition government despite 12 weeks of intense horsetrading.

Washington previously had kept a low profile in the protracted jockeying among the majority Shias, the Kurds and Sunni Muslims in Iraq, insisting it was nothing more than politics as usual.

Iraq has seen the beginnings of a government emerge since the elections for a 275-seat assembly, with Kurdish leader Jalal Talabani chosen president and Shia Ibrahim Jaafari designated prime minister.

Jaafari has been seeking in vain to form a cabinet based on a broad coalition of Shias, Kurds and Sunni Arabs, despite the fact the once-dominant Sunnis largely boycotted the elections.

The New York Times, which first reported the US pressure on Baghdad, said Rice told the Iraqis enough time had passed since the election and they should wrap up a new government “as soon as they could.”

l US investigators have found that American troops who shot dead an Italian agent at a Baghdad checkpoint on March 4 committed no wrongdoing and will not be disciplined, an army official said.

US troops fatally shot the Italian intelligence officer, Nicola Calipari, when they opened fire on a car heading for Baghdad airport in which he was escorting Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, a hostage who had just been released. – AFP