Attacks on troops may get worse

Despite Saddam Hussein's capture, military analysts warn this isn't yet the end of guerrillas' attacks on U.S. troops and its allies.

And attacks may get worse in the immediate future.

"In the coming two weeks there will be more attacks because Saddam's supporters are angry," said Sheikh Abbas Rubaie, media chief for Moqtada al-Sadr, a Shiite cleric based in Najaf. "Saddam used to fund them and as the money runs out, the attacks will stop."

Charles Heyman, editor of the London-based Jane's World Armies, shares Rubaie's view.

"We should expect a surge of attacks in the next 14 days," he says. "Their message is: 'You may have Saddam, but we're still here.' "

Saddam may provide some intelligence about his role and that of the other leaders of the guerrilla campaign, including Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, once vice chairman of the Baath Party's Revolutionary Command Council and Saddam's closest confidant.

"If we get intel from him, it will certainly give a boost to rounding up the die-hards, and stemming the funding," says Phebe Marr, an Iraq expert and former U.S. government analyst. But the arrest won't end the resistance: "It's not a magic wand. The insurgency now is more broadly grounded."

It may be too soon to judge the impact of the capture on the resistance, since the exact makeup remains unknown. A recent Congressional Research Service report lists 15 separate groups battling U.S.-led forces in Iraq, from Saddam loyalists to al-Qaida operatives.

"The anecdotal evidence of those who have actually met them (the guerrillas) suggests that the resistance is self-generating," and was barely directed by the ousted Iraqi leader, says Tim Ripley, at the Center for Defense and International Security Studies at Britain's University of Lancaster. "It doesn't paint a picture of them worshiping Saddam Hussein every day."

Most of the guerrillas are Sunni Islamists, foreign fighters and ordinary Iraqis who simply have tired of the United States-led occupation, say analysts.

Michael O'Hanlon, defense expert at the Brookings Institution in Washington, says: "On a scale of 1 to 10, as single events go, this is close to a 10 in importance — but single events don't win counterinsurgencies or hearts and minds."

---

Contributing: Scott Peterson, Brad Knickerbocker, Fred Weir, Gretchen Peters