Be prepared for terror attacks, says Bremer

US officials say they are braced for further large-scale terrorist attacks in Iraq, after reports from intelligence sources that hundreds of Islamic militants who escaped across the border to Iran during the war may have slipped back into the country.

In an interview in yesterday's New York Times, the top civilian administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, claimed fighters for the militant organisation Ansar al-Islam were plotting against occupation forces.

"The intelligence suggests that Ansar al-Islam is planning large-scale terrorist attacks here," he said. "So long as we have, as I think we do, substantial numbers of Ansar terrorists around here, I think we have to be pretty alert to the fact that we may see more of this."

Last Thursday, a car bomb tore through the Jordanian embassy in central Baghdad, killing 17 people and wounding many more.

The attack was the worst yet against the civilian population in Iraq and presented coalition forces with a new kind of security threat. It is still not known who was responsible for the bombing.

Ansar al-Islam, which has been linked to the al-Qaida terrorist network, had set up a camp in northern Iraq, close to the eastern Kurdish territory. The camp was bombed by US forces during the war, and Kurds, supporting the removal of Saddam Hussein, also attacked, causing many militants to flee to Iran.

Mr Bremer said they appeared to be flooding back into Iraq. The group's history pointed to major terrorist acts, including car bombings of the type seen last week. "The history is they do big stuff. They don't do chicken-feed type stuff."

General Richard Myers, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, has said that some suspected members of Ansar al-Islam had been captured and were being interrogated. While US officials have said it is possible that al-Qaida is operating inside Iraq, it has no conclusive evidence.

US military officials have so far blamed the almost daily attacks on Saddam Hussein loyalists, but there are growing concerns about foreign fighters joining the resistance.

Since May 1, when hostilities were officially declared over, the still simmering conflict has claimed the lives of 55 American soldiers and six British troops.

Another two US soldiers were yesterday wounded when a grenade was thrown at a patrol from an upper storey window at Baghdad University, and two were wounded in a bomb attack on a road near Tikrit, north of the capital.