WASHINGTON, March 31: The fight in Iraq is about to get a lot bloodier and the long and dangerous road to Baghdad is fraught with dangers for US troops, warns the Newsweek magazine.

In its latest issue, which appeared in the market on Monday, the Newsweek says that the Iraqi military has been preparing for this war for years and is ready to give the US and British troops a fierce fight.

For instance, the magazine points out, the Iraqis have been secretly purchasing thousands of Russian-made Kornet anti-tank missiles from Ukraine to deal with US Abrams M1A1 tanks.

Although these tanks are among the best in the world, they can be targeted from behind by these missiles and in a recent battle, the Iraqis successfully used these missiles to destroy two Abrams M1A1 tanks.

The magazine also says that the way Iraqis have resisted the invading forces, they have won the admiration of the entire Arab world. “Less than two weeks into the second Gulf War, does Operation Iraqi Freedom risk blowing up into a Middle East war? That scenario, once very remote, is no longer unthinkable,” says the report.

The resistance, the magazine says, also has alarmed neo-conservative planners in the Bush administration who earlier were advocating moving on to Syria after finishing Iraq.

But now the administration dreads an inflamed Arab Street turning on its pro-US governments in a conflagration that could force regime change in, say Amman (Jordan) before Baghdad, the magazine says.

President Saddam Hussein, the Newsweek says, hopes to win this war not by defeating the US forces but by surviving while Muslim rage builds from Cairo to Islamabad. The magazine says that the spy who tipped the CIA about President Saddam Hussein’s whereabouts and caused the first US air strike on Iraq has been killed by the Iraqi forces.

“The enemy we’re fighting is different from the one we war-gamed against,” said Lt Gen William Wallace, the US Army’s ground commander in Iraq. Because of the fierceness of the resistance and overextended supply lines, the war is going to take longer than predicted, Wallace told reporters.

Last Wednesday, CIA officials gave a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill about the rising tide of anti-Americanism sweeping the Arab world, the report says. Particular emphasis was placed on Jordan and Egypt. As agency officials discussed the depth of hatred for US actions, the senators fell silent.