NAMING THE ENEMY

The militant Iraqi Muslim group Ansar al-Islam, whose main base was destroyed by American and Kurdish forces before the Iraq war began, has become the principal "terrorist adversary" of US forces in the country, the Pentagon said on Thursday.

Air Force Lieutenant General Norton Schwartz told reporters there was no proof that guerrillas from the Muslim group, suspected of having ties to fugitive Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda guerrilla network, had taken part in major suicide bombings in Baghdad. But he reiterated statements by other US officials that Ansar al-Islam had now established itself in Baghdad and said the group had become a primary target of US forces.

"I think that AI ... is our principal organized terrorist adversary in Iraq right now and we are concentrating our resources on that," Schwartz, director for operations on the US military's Joint Staff at the Pentagon, told reporters.