As intense fighting continues in and around Fallujah, resistance fighters are moving into other Iraqi villages in violent Anbar province to open new fronts against U.S. forces, according to senior military officials.

The combined pressures of a renewed fight in Fallujah, the upcoming American and Iraqi elections, and the onset of Ramadan are cited as reasons for the U.S. military to expect additional battlefields.

The fungible battleground in Iraq described by senior officials contradicts the claims of Iraq Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, who told an audience in Washington in September that the insurgency was limited to parts of Baghdad and Fallujah.

The rest of the country is, by and large, OK. It's not 100 percent OK, but it's OK. You count, out of the 18 provinces we have in Iraq, about 14 or 15 are safe. There are no major problems or insurgency problems in them. There are a few problems, few pockets -- in Baghdad a few pockets, and a few other areas, such as Fallujah and certain parts of Baghdad, Allawi said.

One such new battleground popped up last week in the formerly relatively peaceful town of Hit, north of Ramadi and Fallujah, officials said.

We've known for a while that the enemy would attempt to take pressure off of Fallujah by opening a 'second front' in the west, a senior military official told United Press International Monday.

Last April, U.S. forces swung nearly nine battalions from other parts of Anbar province to Fallujah to back up forces fighting an urban battle there. That left numerous towns without a U.S. presence at all and a power vacuum, according to military officials.

When fighting in Fallujah stopped in May as a result of a negotiated settlement, U.S. forces redeployed throughout Anbar province only to find previously friendly towns now home to insurgents where none had been.

Hit was a town the U.S. military pointed to with both pride and hope -- an area where Iraqis successfully ran their own affairs and provided their own security without a major American presence. They saw Hit as proof that the insurgency was not embraced by the Iraqi population, and a place where stability could be seen to be taking root.

When the latest Fallujah offensive began last week, military officials said 100 to 150 insurgents -- anticipating the same swing of American forces -- moved into Hit in an attempt to take advantage of a distracted U.S. force.

He knows we have pulled combat power from (across Anbar) to execute large operations in the Fallujah area, the senior official said. He expects us to do it again, so he comes out here to tie us down. He moved too soon though. (We have) plenty of combat power out here to deal with him and we are.

The insurgent forces also took advantage of what turned out to be a corrupt police department, the official said. The department of roughly 2,000 police -- an enormous force built up under Saddam Hussein's patronage system -- was led by between 15 and 20 criminals and terrorists, according to the official, and they played us pretty well.

The resistance force showed up on Oct. 10, according to military intelligence. U.S. forces in the region surrounded the city on Oct. 11 and fought a three-day battle using primarily snipers and precision-guided munitions -- their most accurate weapons -- to kill the resistance, whom they refer to as terrorists.

Three days of that broke their backs. We attacked into the city on Oct. 15 without firing a shot, he said.

Hit is now being occupied by the 503rd Battalion of the Iraqi National Guard, which took the place of U.S. occupying forces on the 15th, first day of Ramadan -- a move meant to assuage religious sensitivities.

Hit has been quiet since, the official said, and the 503rd remains in control.

The police force is being rebuilt and most are already back at work, according to the U.S. military. The top officers were killed in the three-day battle.

Some insurgent forces who escaped the attack moved into Rawah, a town on the Euphrates River near the Syrian border, where the United States has never had a consistent presence, the official said.

Significantly for U.S. forces, the insurgents skipped Haditha and Anah, the two main towns between Rawah and Hit that have been stops for retreating resistance forces in the past.

That is a good trend, if it holds. It means Haditha and Anah aren't welcoming to them. And means the (police) there have some strength, the official said, and then reiterated the caveat, if it holds.

Two weeks ago the Anah police and Iraqi National Guard repelled an attack on the Anah police department without calling for help from the United States.

U.S. forces attacked Rawah on Sunday, killing an estimated seven to nine men, who, the official said, were shooting mortars and machine guns. The city was quiet Monday, the officer said.