Iraqi insurgents better coordinating their attacks: Powell

"If you look at the insurgency and what they are doing in recent weeks ... there does seem to be a level of coordination, a level of command and control that we need to target and go after," Powell told the CBS News program "Face the Nation."

In the months after the fall of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein officials, the US-led coalition authority dismissed the roadside bombs and sporadic ambushes aimed at coalition forces as the work of a handful of thugs and diehard Saddam loyalists.

"Earlier we did not see the kind of coordination that we're seeing now," Powell said, "but now we're seeing a higher level of coordination.

"It changes the nature of the enemy. We have to go after it."

Powell cautioned that not all the insurgents are part of one organization. Some of the fighters are linked to group of fugitive Jordanian Islamist Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi's group, while others belong to the militia of radical Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr.

And whether the different organizations "are linked or not remains to be seen," Powell said.

"I wouldn't go that far. Certainly we're seeing a level of command and control and a level of coordination that seems to me is a little bit different than what we've seen months ago," he said.