US military officials in Iraq are now focusing more on fighting local and foreign jihad fighters than followers of the former regime of Saddam Hussein.
The shift in priorities follows a sharp rise in number of suicide attacks over the last weeks and assumes that the jihad fighters pose a greater and more immediate threat to security, the Washington Post reported Monday, quoting miltary sources.
US officials had earlier described armed resistance to the US-led occupation as led by "former regime elements" and "dead enders" still loyal to Saddam. Several commanders, however, warned that the shift was still based more on intuition than solid proof, the newspaper added.
