US warns of upsurge of attacks in Iraq

Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez also urged Iraqis to help find fugitive former dictator Saddam Hussein -- whom he called a needle in a haystack -- and said US forces would keep up their offensive against insurgents using any weapon at their disposal.

"We expect to see an increase in violence as we move forward toward sovereignty at the end of June. We're going to have some periods where there will be an increase in violence in the coming months," Sanchez told a news conference.

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In the latest fatal attack on US forces, guerrillas blew apart a Humvee with a roadside bomb in the northern Iraq city of Mosul, killing one American soldier and wounding two.

They staged the ambush a day after Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld visited and said operations were on the right path.

"We heard an explosion and ran toward it. I saw four US soldiers lying on the ground, with their Humvee destroyed," Mosul policeman Hamid Saleh said.

Sanchez said insurgents would seek to derail the handover of power, partly by attacking the political process itself.

Under an accelerated plan unveiled last month, the United States will hand over sovereignty to a transitional Iraqi government at the end of June. That government will be chosen by Iraqis selected in May via a series of nationwide caucuses.

"Their focus will be...conducting some kind of operations against the economic and political sectors primarily, while maintaining pressure on the military if they are to derail the process. We're prepared for that," Sanchez said.