A senior US military officer on Wednesday predicted that al-Qaeda fighters in Iraq will move to the "vast ungoverned spaces" of the Horn of Africa once conditions in the country get too tough for them.

The warning came from Major General Douglas Lute, director of operations at the US' central command. "There will come a time when Zarqawi will face too much resistance in Iraq and will move on," he predicted, referring to the head of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the Jordanian-born Islamist who has claimed responsibility for numerous attacks, kidnappings and beheadings.

Looking ahead to a time when he said Iraq would be "stabilised", Lute predicted that Zarqawi would take the "path of least resistance" and leave for such countries as Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia.

But before that, he suggested, Zarqawi would make a show of force in the run-up to the Iraqi constitutional referendum and subsequent elections. "He has to go down fighting," he said.

Lute said 90% of what he called the "enemy" in Iraq was domestic. There was only a "slither" of foreign fighters "sponsored from outside".

He declined to put a figure on his estimate. Earlier this year, the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said there were between 12 000 and 20 000 hardcore insurgents in Iraq.

In Iraq on Wednesday, insurgents armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles attacked police checkpoints in western Baghdad in some of the heaviest street fighting in the capital for months.

Explosions shook the Hay al-Jamia district and at least six police vehicles were set ablaze as about 40 insurgents, some with faces masked, launched a daylight assault, witnesses told Reuters. A police source said 13 people had been killed and 31 wounded.

On Wednesday night 21 Iraqi MPs and three senior government officials allied with the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr refused to carry out their duties after fighting broke out between rival Shia militias. At least eight people were killed and dozens wounded in street battles in Najaf and Baghdad between members of the pro-government Badr organisation and supporters of Sadr.

Lute said in London on Wednesday that the dependency of Iraqi security forces on foreign, notably US, troops had to be broken. "Ultimately, the solution has got to be a local solution, not one imposed from outside."

But he refused to be drawn on a timetable for a reduction in US forces -- now about 138 000 -- in Iraq. He said only that if the training of Iraqi forces continued at its present rate by this time next year the US would be "in a position to make adjustments".

He said the US would not "leave a vacuum" in Iraq and would continue to deploy 10-man "coalition assistant teams" to provide air support, artillery and medical evacuation for Iraqi forces. The US suffered from an intelligence gap, however, and had to rely on Iraqis to tell the difference, for example, between people from different Arab countries, and between Iraqi Sunnis, Shias and Kurds.

Britain will be under heavy pressure to cut back its forces in southern Iraq, now numbering about 9 000, before it takes over control of Nato forces in Afghanistan in April next year. Britain will command Nato's allied rapid reaction force, to be based in southern Afghanistan. Nato will later set up another headquarters to the east of the country.

"Then all of Afghanistan will be under the Nato flag," Lute said.

Britain has also taken on the responsibility for eradicating the country's opium poppy crop. Lute said US forces would work alongside the British only when they were available.

There were historic restrictions on the role of the US in law enforcement activities, he said, adding that there was no hard intelligence linking the narcotics trade with "extremists". But he also said there was evidence that the Taliban were still recruiting supporters. - Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005

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