"We're going to work hard to continue fighting till the date of the election," Dulaimy said.
The spokesman, who said he was in Fallujah when he spoke to an Iraqi reporter by satellite telephone this week, claimed fighters were steadily infiltrating the city through two neighborhoods in the south, then working their way to northern areas once considered secured.
A man pours water to prevent the spread of fire from a burning tanker in Baghdad. Witnesses said the tanker caught fire as U.S. troops battled insurgents.
(Asa'ad Muhsen -- AP)
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"We reach those areas by sneaking from house to house, then those suiciders do combat with the American army," Dulaimy said.
He said most of the infiltrators were foreign Arabs. Iraqi fighters have shifted elsewhere, especially to the northern city of Mosul, where Iraqi and U.S. officials acknowledge surprise at the strength of the insurgent effort in the last month.
More than 150 Iraqis, including many National Guardsmen, have been found dead in the city. On Friday, the bodies of four men were found by a burning sedan. Three were described as foreigners, one of whom was beheaded.
Turkey's Foreign Ministry said that "several temporary security guards" were killed in Mosul en route to the Turkish Embassy in Baghdad. Two other guards reached the capital, and one returned to the Turkish border with a driver, the ministry said.
"Mosul is the right hand of Fallujah and helped us open a new front to fight the Americans," Dulaimy said. "We admit we lost the media battle, but we didn't lose the military battle."
In Baghdad, the U.S. Embassy confirmed the identity of an American man abducted in a Nov. 1 home invasion in a prosperous capital neighborhood, the Associated Press reported. Roy Hallums worked for a Saudi company that did business with the Iraqi army. He was abducted along with two other foreigners after a gun battle in which one Iraqi guard and one attacker were killed.
"I want to plead for his life and send out prayers and hope that he will be released," his wife, Susan Hallums, said in a phone interview with the Associated Press. "There has been no proof of life since he was taken."
[The United States on Friday completely forgave $4.1 billion in debt Iraq owed it and urged other nations not part of an international debt relief agreement to follow suit, the Associated Press reported from Washington.]
