Spike in Iraq violence is temporary: official

By Luke Baker

LONDON (Reuters) - The recent surge in violence in Iraq is short-term rather than the beginning of a new trend, Iraq's national security adviser said on Friday as he sought to paint a rosy outlook for the country.

Speaking on the sidelines of an Iraq investment conference in London, Muwaffaq al-Rubaie said the spate of suicide bombings in which more than 200 people have been killed in the past 10 days was the work of al-Qaeda-linked groups. It showed their desperation to reignite sectarian conflict, he said.

"This is a spike, that is all," Rubaie told Reuters. "This sort of thing may happen every few weeks for the next couple of years, but we are on top of it.

"Al Qaeda will continue to try to stage these high-profile attacks against the populace, to go back to their old strategy of trying to trigger a sectarian response from the Shia population, but they will fail miserably," he said.

Security has broadly improved throughout Iraq in the past 18 months, but there was an alarming step up in violence last month, with 290 civilians killed across the country, according to government figures released on Thursday.

Several of the attacks, including two suicide bombings that killed 150 people, targeted Shi'ite areas of Baghdad or Shi'ite holy sites, stoking fears of renewed sectarian conflict like that which tore the country apart between 2005 and 2007.

Security remains a major obstacle for foreign investors looking to tap into Iraq's oil wealth and the businesses that are expected to spin off from that. The legal framework governing investment is also regarded as problematic.

To try to offset some of those concerns, Iraqi officials spent most of the two-day conference trying to reassure the more than 600 delegates -- from bankers to aircraft salesman, oil executives and construction entrepreneurs -- that opportunities were ripe and that business was set to boom.