Iraqis may fight rebels for years: Rumsfeld

In the face of the unrelenting violence, Rumsfeld confirmed contacts with rebels in a bid to stem the carnage but warned that the insurgency could go on for years.

In fresh violence two US pilots were killed in a helicopter crash north of Baghdad yesterday, the military said.

The AH-64 Apache attack helicopter crashed at about 11:45 a.m. (0745 GMT) in Mishahda, 30km north of the capital, an Associated Press reporter at the scene said. The two pilots were killed in the crash, which is still under investigation, said Lt. Col. Clifford Kent, a spokesman for the 3rd Infantry Division.

Late Sunday, gunmen opened fire on a barbershop, killing the barber, a police officer and a nine-year-old boy in the bustling Baghdad district of Al-Jadidah where Sunni Arabs, Iraqi Shias and Christians live together, the interior ministry source said.

The attackers then placed an explosive charge and blew the shop up before making their escape.

His remarks came on another day of bloodshed on which three suicide attacks around the northern city of Mosul killed more than 33 people, many of them police officers, highlighting the task faced by Iraq's US-trained forces against a Sunni Arab revolt, backed by foreign Islamists, against the new Shia-led government.

"That insurgency can go on for any number of years," Rumsfeld said in a US television interview. "Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years. Foreign forces are not going to repress that insurgency.

"We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency."

Handing over to Iraqi forces and withdrawing the US army that invaded to topple Saddam Hussein two years ago is a key policy for President Bush as opinion polls show Americans turning against a project that many believed would rapidly produce a stable, pro-Washington government in Baghdad.

Rumsfeld said insurgent attacks were becoming deadlier.