DUBAI: Even before Washington launched its war against Iraq it had fears the conflict would turn into another Vietnam-like conflict. Disturbing similarities are beginning to emerge.

Reporters inside Iraq with the US and British forces say the campaign has taken on the feel of a guerrilla war, with no defined front lines face unexpected guerrilla tactics.

“There are a lot of parallells between the Vietnam War and the invasion of Iraq, especially in the steadfastness of the Iraqis,” Bahraini historian Essa Amin told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

The technology of the US was far superior to that of the people they were fighting against in Vietnam as it is in Iraq. In Iraq, as in Vietnam, US forces face unexpected paramilitary tactics.

“The enemy we are fighting is different from the one we war-gamed”, Lieutenant General William Wallace, Commander of the US Army V Corps which is nearing Baghdad, told the Washington Post last week.

“We knew they were there — the paramilitaries — but we didn’t know they would fight like this”, he was quoted as saying.

Four US soldiers were killed Saturday when a suicide bomber blew up his car at a checkpoint outside Najaf. Iraqi Vice President Taha Yasin Ramadan warned there would be many more such attacks.

“Thousands of volunteers and fedayeen (martyrdom fighters) are coming into Iraq and major contingents of these volunteers will be seen in the coming days”, he said.

Nearly two weeks into the war, early predictions of a swift victory over Iraqi forces appear to be being revised by US President George W. Bush and senior officials and commanders.

The message from the Bush administration is that Americans should brace for a long and difficult war.

“There have been miscalculations in reading the Iraqi reality that people are ready to fight,” said Abdullah Khaleq Abdullah, a professor of political science at the University of Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates.

In Vietnam, the unfamiliar terrain and the tropical weather have been cited by historians as contributing factors to the US defeat.

In Iraq, the desert terrain, sandstorms and rising heat have already created setbacks.

British soldiers have been quoted as saying they have been scavenging the debris of war for Iraqi army boots because the British Army variety are disintegrating in the hot desert sand.

One weapon which the US thought would be important in the Vietnam war was bombs, as it is now with Iraq. At first the US bombed specific targets, but when they realised that had little effect they began blanket bombings, dropping massive amounts of explosives.

And, as fighting rages in the north and south of Iraq, the big prize — Baghdad — still lies ahead.

The capture of the Iraqi capital will prove impossible for the allied forces, Egypt’s former army commander was recently quoted as saying by Al Khaleej newspaper in the United Arab Emirates.

Retired General Saaduddin Al Chadli, a well known Arab military strategist, said the Iraqis were acting cleverly by avoiding open battles and trying to lure the enemy into street fighting in cities.

While US military strategists have said they want to avoid street battles which would inflict heavy casualties both on the allied forces and on civilians, that is exactly what the Iraqis appear to favour.—dpa