WASHINGTON – Secretary of State Powell appeared to undercut yesterday the more upbeat message on Iraq that President Bush has been pressing on the campaign trail and cautioned that the insurgency in Iraq is worsening as terrorists seek to disrupt the run-up to Iraqi elections scheduled for January.

Mr. Powell’s warning about the challenge ahead in Iraq came hours after the American military announced the arrest of a top Iraqi National Guard commander for alleged ties to insurgents.

The military declined to provide details on Brigadier General Talib al-Lahibi’s suspected links to insurgents aiming to topple the interim Iraqi authorities and oust coalition forces, but some diplomats and independent analysts warn that the arrest underscores the difficulty of building up Iraqi security forces to the point where they are able to take over from American soldiers and restore stability.

Speaking on television networks yesterday, Mr. Powell said American troops will move into terrorist “no-go zones” in Iraq to clear the way for legitimate elections in January. He said America was “fighting an intense insurgency,” adding, “Yes, it’s getting worse and the reason it is getting worse is that they are determined to disrupt the election.”

He said America’s “goal is to move right through the fall season, improve security throughout the country, and have the elections as scheduled at the end of January of 2005.” He added: “The major thrust of our political and military and diplomatic efforts over the next several months will be to make sure there are no no-go zones.”

The secretary of state said the American military is putting together plans to “return these zones to government control.”

[Also yesterday, two suicide attackers exploded two car bombs outside an Iraqi National Guard compound west of the capital yesterday, wounding American and Iraqi forces, the Associated Press reported.

The militants, who died in the blasts, tried to ram two cars loaded with explosives into the base in Kharma, a town on the outskirts of the insurgent stronghold of Fallujah, a U.S. military official said on condition of anonymity, according to the Associated Press.]

Following the arrest of General al-Lahibi some are now questioning whether the Iraqi security forces are capable at this stage of maintaining government control in insurgent- or terrorist-heavy zones even after they have been subdued by American military action.

General al-Lahibi, who previously served as an infantry officer in Saddam Hussein’s army, was detained Thursday in the province of Diyala, northeast of Baghdad for “having associations with known insurgents,” the American military said in a statement. He was appointed only days earlier as head of the Iraqi National Guard for the Diyala province after being nominated by fellow guardsmen.

General al-Lahibi is the most senior member of the new Iraqi security forces to be arrested on suspicion of collaborating with insurgents, but he is not the first. Last year, American forces arrested General Mohammed Habib al-Mashadani, a deputy commander of the Iraqi national police, on charges of corruption and subversion.

According to Ahmed Hashim, a professor at the U.S. Naval War College, Iraqi security forces are “penetrated by personnel sympathetic to the insurgents.” He criticized the speed with which the coalition has sought to bring Iraqi units into the fight against insurgents, noting that 90% of the Iraqi security personnel served under Saddam Hussein and are marked by a “pervasive authoritarian culture and the mentality of the former regime.”

Mr. Hashim believes that the risks of penetration of the Iraqi security forces by insurgents and terrorists will grow as attacks on them mount in the run-up to the January elections and the casualty figures climb.

More than 700 Iraqis serving in police and paramilitary units have been killed since last summer and terrorists have increasingly been targeting them with attacks like the one yesterday in which a pair of car bombs were exploded outside an Iraqi National Guard compound west of Baghdad.

The American military has been training Iraqi police and National Guard members for more than 18 months. In April, the forces’ weakness was demonstrated when police largely abandoned their stations in the face of an uprising by Shiite militiamen in Baghdad and southern cities. Iraqi police on duty numbered just over 31,000 in July, down from 90,803 in May, with most being sent for retraining and others removed for supporting the insurgency.

There are now 30,000 members of the Iraqi National Guard across Iraq.