An overwhelming majority of Americans believe that fighting between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims in Iraq will lead to civil war, according to the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll.

The poll, which was conducted between March 2 and 5, interviewed 1,000 randomly selected Americans.

According to the poll results released late on Monday (local time), 80 per cent of those surveyed believe that recent sectarian violence makes civil war in Iraq likely, and more than a third say such a conflict is "very likely" to occur.

In the face of continuing violence, more than half 52 per cent of those surveyed said the United States should begin withdrawing its forces.

One in six favours immediate withdrawal of all troops, while about one-third prefer a more gradual return.

The survey also found growing doubts that the Bush administration has a strategy in Iraq.

Two-thirds of those interviewed did not think the president had a clear plan for handling the Iraq situation, the highest level of doubt recorded since the question was first asked three years ago.

However, an even larger share 70 per cent questions whether Democrats in Congress have a plan for dealing with Iraq, suggesting Americans see neither party as offering a coherent exit strategy.

The survey highlights how support for the war in Iraq has dissolved since the US invasion.

At the end of 2003, nearly six in 10 59 per cent said the conflict was worth the cost.

Today, 42 per cent share that view. In the past nine months, the proportion in Post-ABC polls who say the United States should begin withdrawing its troops has increased from 38 per cent to a 52 per cent majority.

Meanwhile, a separate poll conducted by AP-Ipsos found that most people in the United States are convinced that Iraqis are better off now than they were under Saddam Hussein, but this is a view that is not shared by residents of some of Washington's longtime allies.

According to AP-Ipsos polling conducted last month, people in Mexico, South Korea and Spain were far more inclined to say Iraqis are doing worse. In Germany and France two countries that strongly opposed the US invasion of Iraq people were about evenly divided on that question.

Residents of Britain, Italy and Canada while not as optimistic as people in the United States were more likely to say Iraqis are better off now than they were under Saddam than to say they are "worse off." Britain and Italy have been among the strongest allies of US Iraq policy.

Gruesome discovery

The bound and blindfold bodies of 18 men who had been strangled were found in a minibus in a mainly Sunni Arab district of Baghdad yesterday, apparent victims of a sectarian war being waged by armed factions.

Meanwhile, a string of explosions killed at least four people yesterday including two young boys and injured five in the Iraqi capital, police said.

A bomb hidden under a parked car near the University of Technology exploded as police from the interior minister's protection force were driving through central Baghdad in two vehicles, killing at least two people and injuring five. The minister was not in the convoy, he said.

Another bomb missed a US convoy on the northern outskirts of Baghdad and killed two Iraqi boys who were selling gasoline by the side of the road, police Captain Qassim Hussein said.

He estimated their age at between 10 and 11.

Source: China Daily