Iraq: Iraq could provide recruitment, training grounds, technical skills and language proficiency for a new generation of "professionalised" terrorists, according to a report from the CIA's National Intelligence Council.
The prediction comes at a time when the US is lowering expectations for the turnout in the Iraqi elections and there is apprehension that the result could be a setback for American plans.
The US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, told a US television programme that an election which failed to provide sufficient representation for the Sunni Muslim minority would be a victory for the insurgents, who could become emboldened by the result.
The CIA report distils the findings of 15 US intelligence agencies and aims to predict the state of the world in 2020.
The council believes that pressure from the global counter-terrorism effort and advances in information technology "will cause the terrorist threat to become increasingly decentralised, evolving into an eclectic array of groups, cells, and individuals".
The core al-Qaeda membership "probably will continue to dwindle" but other jihadists "united by a common hatred of moderate regimes and the West" were likely to conduct terrorist attacks.
The al-Qaeda membership in Afghanistan would be replaced "in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq" and superseded by more diffuse Islamic extremist groups, all of which would oppose the spread of many aspects of globalisation into traditional Islamic societies.
The report highlights its conclusion that "Iraq and other possible conflicts in the future could provide recruitment, training grounds, technical skills and language proficiency for a new class of terrorists who are 'professionalised' and for whom political violence becomes an end in itself".
Indeed, foreign jihadists would "enjoy a growing sense of support from Muslims who are not necessarily supporters of terrorism".