BAGHDAD, July 1: Evidence from captured or killed assailants shows professional commandos from Saddam Hussein’s old power structure are behind recent attacks on occupying forces, the US administrator in Iraq said on Tuesday.

Paul Bremer, in charge of the US-led authority running Iraq, vowed to crush the insurgents and Saddam in a tough-talking news conference.

“They’re on the losing side of history,” he said.

He also said US forces had yet to uncover evidence of a central command ordering the attacks, which have killed at least 22 Americans since US President George W. Bush declared major combat over on May 1.

“It looks to us as if...they are conducted by people who probably had experience in the intelligence services or in the military,” Bremer said.

“These are professional operations, usually small units of five or seven men...showing that there is probably military expertise behind them. These are not spontaneous attacks by angry, laid-off workers,” Bremer said.

US forces have recently been coming under daily attack, often rocket-propelled grenade assaults on military convoys.

In some cases killed or captured perpetrators had evidence on them linking them to the former regime and in some cases their identities were known, Bremer said.

Bremer, who is working to form an Iraqi council by mid-July to help the United States govern Iraq, said the insurgents may be following a plan devised before the fall of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein in April on the expectation that the US-led forces would prevail.

“It certainly is the case that it looks like that kind of operation,” Bremer said.

He said capturing or killing Saddam would go a long way towards halting the anti-American attacks.

“When you make an enemy of the United States you’d better watch out. Sooner or later we will get you,” Bremer said. “We will find him (Saddam) and bring him to justice. It will happen. I don’t know when.” —Reuters