US President George Bush has said the US has prevailed in the Battle of Iraq in a speech on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln.

He explicitly linked the conflict in the Gulf to the 11 September 2001 terror attacks on the United States.

He spoke of victories in Afghanistan, but warned that the al-Qaeda network was "wounded, not destroyed".

"We will continue to hunt down the enemy before he can strike," he told the cheering officers and sailors aboard the ship.

Bush landed on the aircraft carrier in a small navy plane, making him the first sitting US president to take part in a so-called tailhook landing.

Earlier, Mr Bush's spokesman Ari Fleischer warned that the president's speech would not mark the end of hostilities "from a legal point of view".

There are legal implications to declaring a war officially ended: under the Geneva Conventions, once war is declared over, the victorious army must release prisoners-of-war and halt operations targeting specific leaders.