WASHINGTON: Iraq has not been plunged into civil war yet but the situation is ‘very tenuous’ and further attacks would have ‘a very significant impact’, the chief of US military intelligence said on Tuesday.

Lt Gen Michael Maples, director of the Defence Intelligence Agency, said violence in Iraq had increased significantly in the wake of Wednesday’s bombing of a revered shrine in Samarra.

“I think we should take heart in the (Iraqi) leaders who have come forward at this point,” he told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “But we’re also in a very tenuous situation right now I believe.”

“I think that more violence, were it to occur, were it to be stimulated by Al Qaeda in Iraq, would have a very significant impact on the situation in Iraq,” he said.

Hundreds of Iraqis have been killed in sectarian violence sparked by the bombing of the shrine last Wednesday despite calls by political and religious leaders for calms.

Gen Maples and John Negroponte, director of US national intelligence, both emphasised the efforts by political and religious leaders to avert a full blown civil war.

They also stressed that the formation of an inclusive national unity government in Iraq was key to easing the violence.

“I believe that the underlying conditions are present, but that we are not involved in a civil war at this time,” Gen Maples said.

But the general said guerillas were likely to continue using ‘violence as a means to further their political interests’. —AFP