Wednesday, September 27 2006 12:25 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Washington: The US war in Iraq is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders, according to portions of a declassified security document released Tuesday by George Bush's administration. Bush announced his decision to declassify key parts of the report after some of its findings on trends in global terrorism were leaked and published over the weekend. Bush voiced annoyance with the way that the report, the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), completed in April, had been taken out of context, and he ordered the document declassified. Initial reports citing unnamed sources had said that the report found that the US-led invasion of Iraq had spawned a new generation of home-grown Islamic radicals spread across the globe. The report says that decentralised terrorist groups are spreading and adapting to counterterrorism measures, which will make it more difficult to find and undermine terrorists. "If this trend continues, threats to US interests at home and abroad will become more diverse, leading to increasing attacks worldwide," it says. The portions of the report that were declassified Tuesday identified four underlying factors that are causing terrorism to spread: entrenched grievances in the Muslim world, the Iraq "jihad," the slow pace of reform in many Muslim countries and anti-US sentiment. "The Iraq conflict has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement," the report says. Al Qaeda has exploited the situation in Iraq to gain new recruits and donors, the report concludes. Bush said earlier Tuesday that the selected excerpts of the NIE released to reporters were politically motivated to undermine the White House ahead of the midterm congressional elections on Nov 7. Bush said that he ordered the document declassified so that people can read it and judge the terrorist threat for themselves. Bush insists that the war in Iraq has made the US safer and brought democracy to the country.