Al-Qaeda on the run, says US

2008-05-25 21:14

Baghdad - Violence across Iraq hit a four-year low last week and United States and Iraqi military operations have al-Qaeda on the run, the said US military on Sunday, but warned that jihadists remained a lethal threat.

US military spokesperson Rear-Admiral Patrick Driscoll said: "Iraq-wide we have seen a significant reduction in violence in the past week. Security incidents decreased to a level not seen since March 2004."

He said the US internal system of monitoring violence levels showed a significant decrease in the number of incidents.

Driscoll said he could not immediately give figures for how many people had been killed or wounded across the country in the past week and how closely these compared with March 2004 levels.

But he added that the number of incidents had declined by 70% since the US increased its troop presence last year with "surge operations" which saw an extra 30 000 soldiers brought in to curb sectarian violence.

High-profile attacks

Al-Qaeda still posed a serious challenge to American and Iraqi security forces and had the ability to stage deadly suicide bombings and to fuel sectarian violence that has claimed a heavy toll, he said.

"First of all, it remains a lethal threat. They no longer control large swathes of territory. They don't control cities, but they are still out there. They are still capable of doing their high-profile attacks," said Driscoll.

His remarks came a day after the US ambassador in Iraq, Ryan Crocker, said he believed that the security forces had got closer than ever to defeating al-Qaeda.

"I am not saying al-Qaeda is defeated, but they have never been so close to it," said Crocker.

Driscoll said on Sunday that combined military operations by US and Iraqi forces had put al-Qaeda to flight, but they could bounce back.

"They are certainly off-balance. Now on the run. It is still too early to pop the champagne and claim victory... If we let up, they will come back," he said.

Security forces were also receiving more information from residents about weapons and insurgents, and Iraqi forces had seized about 270 arms caches since March this year, he said.

Al-Qaeda in Iraq is loosely linked to Osama bin Laden's international network, but derives support mainly from Sunni Muslim groups opposing the US military invasion of Iraq.

Iraqi defence ministry spokesperson Major General Mohammed al-Askari said ongoing Iraqi security operations in the northern province of Nineveh had resulted in the detention of more than 1 000 suspects.

Insurgents on the run

He said they estimated that another 2 000 may have fled troops in the province conducting a major sweep in the past two weeks.

"They (the insurgents) are on the run. They can't organise their work and we will not give them a chance," said Askari.

Meanwhile, the governor of Babylon province, Salem Musalamawi, survived an assassination attempt in Baghdad's al-Qadisiyah district when a car bomb killed one of his bodyguards and wounded nine people, Iraqi security sources said.

- AFP