The past week had been a "particularly grim" seven days in terms of casualties inside Iraq, both for the coalition and for the Iraq people, British Prime Minister Tony Blair's official spokesman told reporters on Monday.

Speaking on the Sunday attack in which 16 US soldiers were killed after their helicopter was gunned down west of Baghdad, the spokesman said Blair condemned the attack and his thoughts were with the relatives and friends of those who died.

However, the spokesman said, the coalition's resolve remained undiminished despite what had admittedly been a difficult week, when Iraq saw a series of bomb attacks that killed dozens of people.

There was particular security problem in Baghdad and in the triangle ground Tikrit, but that shouldn't be allowed to mask the progress on the ground in large parts of the country, the spokesman said.

Amid growing concerns that the coalition forces in Iraq are facing a "guerrilla war," the spokesman told reporters that there were clearly elements of the former Iraqi regime and terrorist influences engaged in guerrilla activities against the occupying forces.

Asked if Blair shared US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's view that the coalition was still effectively "at war," the spokesman said major combat operations in Iraq had ended earlier this year, and he did not think anyone had ever pretended at the time that would be it.

There would not still be military difficulties for the coalition, the spokesman said, adding that the hunt for former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was continuing.

(Xinhua News Agency November 4, 2003)