A new report states that Iraq war has increased the overall terror threat by giving rise to a new wave of extremism, according to a leaked US intelligence report.

The Iraq war has made the threat from terrorism greater, report says. Instead of contributing to eventual victory in the war on terror, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, The Washington Post and The New York Times reported, based on government sources.

The 30-page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States" is the first formal assessment of global terrorism by U.S. intelligence since the Iraq war began in 2003.

The report represents a consensus view of the 16 different intelligence services.

The conclusions of the NIE appeared to contradict repeated claims by US president George W. Bush claimed to have made the country safer. They also contradict President's recent statement, on the fifth anniversary of the 11 September attacks, that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein had been vital to win the "war on terror".

The document said the overall terror threat has increased since the 9/11 attacks but made no predictions whether the next attack may occur. The report also said that the military conflict in Iraq, in which almost 2,700 US soldiers and nearly 50,000 Iraqis have died, has helped inspire a spread of radical Islamic ideology around the globe.

In a statement, Senator Edward Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and opponent of the Iraq war, said that the National Intelligence Estimate should "put the final nail in the coffin for President Bush's phony argument about the Iraq war".