ISTANBUL, June 27: US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld likened the surge of kidnapping and violence in Iraq to the 1968 Tet offensive, a psychological turning point in the Vietnam War. But he said it would not succeed.

Speaking to reporters ahead of a NATO summit here, Rumsfeld acknoweldged that threats by extremists in Iraq to behead three Turkish hostages appeared to be timed to disrupt the Turkish-hosted meeting of allied leaders.

"There has been a great deal of chatter in the system that they will try to disrupt international events like this, like the Olympics," Rumsfeld said.

He said the extremists were known to have studied the Tet offensive and were targeting civilians, coalition countries, and soft targets to score psychological blows.

"The psychological effect through the television or through the newspaper is that they are there, that they are noisy, that they are achieving something big, which is what the effect of Tet was... that they are going to try things like that," he said.

"Will it work? I think not," Rumsfeld said.

The Tet offensive by Vietcong and north Vietnamese forces against US forces and their South Vietnamese allies brought the war home to millions of Americans who watched it unfold on television. It convinced many the US government was wrong when it claimed it was winning the war.

"Our country and other countries understand what is taking place, that the goal is to try to intimidate them and to terrorize them and to get them to alter their behaviour," he said.

"They're trying to do what they did in Spain to change the outcome of something," he said, referring to the bombing in Madrid on the eve of general elections earlier this year. The new Spanish government withdrew its troops from Iraq.

"Fortunately as this has happened we've seen country after country stand up and say they will not be dissuaded," he said.-AFP