By Charles Aldinger
Shannon Airport, Ireland - United States Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, flying to Kuwait on Sunday on a previously unannounced trip to the Gulf, blamed al-Qaeda guerrillas for violence in Iraq.
"They clearly are involved and active," Rumsfeld told reporters during a refuelling stop in Ireland, referring to Osama bin Laden's group which Washington holds responsible for the September 11, 2001, attacks and others since.
Rumsfeld surprised dozens of US soldiers in the terminal building heading for Kuwait on another military aircraft. He declined to say whether he would make his fourth visit to Iraq since the United States invaded Iraq last March.
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He said insurgents in Iraq were trying to foment strife among religious and ethnic groups to try to halt the move to democracy.
Asked specifically what type of guerrillas and insurgents were launching increasingly sophisticated attacks in Iraq, he said it was difficult to tell. "Some of these people have 13 different passports and 20 different aliases," he said.
He voiced confidence Iraqis would eventually hold elections and form a representative democracy but said the timing of elections was "unpredictable".
Iraq's US governor Paul Bremer has said it could take up to 15 months to hold elections in Iraq, making it impossible to hold them before Washington plans to hand over power to Iraqis on June 30.
Rumsfeld praised the thousands of Iraqis joining police and civil defence forces despite attacks on police by insurgents supporting the toppled president, Saddam Hussein.
"Instead of acquiescing they are still in line to join the police, to join the army," he said.
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