WASHINGTON, Oct 28: US President George Bush on Tuesday blamed a wave of explosions and attacks in Iraq in part on “foreign terrorists”, and said he expected Syria and Iran to enforce border controls to stop “infiltrators”.

Mr Bush vowed that the United States would not “crater in the face of hardship”, and said those behind the suicide bombings had the “same mentality” as those who carried out the Sept 11, 2001, attacks in the United States.

“We’re constantly looking at the enemy and adjusting,” Mr Bush said at a Rose Garden news conference _ one day after Monday’s bloodbath in Baghdad in which 43 people were killed.

“We’re not leaving,” Mr Bush said.

US military officials say there are signs that foreign fighters were behind four suicide bombings on Monday.

But they have provided little direct evidence and at least one senior US commander in Iraq played down the role of outsiders.

One attacker captured in a foiled raid on a police station had a Syrian passport.

“(Saddam Hussein’s deposed) Baathists try to create chaos and fear because they realize that a free Iraq will deny them the excessive privileges they had under Saddam Hussein,” Mr Bush said.

“The foreign terrorists are trying to create conditions of fear because they fear a free and peaceful state in the midst of a part of the world where terror has found recruits. That freedom is exactly what terrorists fear the most.—Reuters