BAGHDAD — The U.S. military distanced itself Sunday from an ambassador’s remarks suggesting that al-Qaeda in Iraq might be close to defeat, but officials noted that the number of attacks by militants in the past week dropped to a level not seen since March 2004.
Navy Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, a military spokesman, said at a news conference that the militants “certainly are off-balance and on the run,” but he cautioned that al-Qaeda in Iraq remains a “very lethal threat.”
About 300 violent incidents were recorded in the seven-day period that ended Friday, down from a weekly high of nearly 1,600 in mid-June last year, according to the military.
The announcement appeared aimed at allaying fears that an uprising by militiamen loyal to radical Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada al-Sadr could unravel security gains since 28,500 additional American troops were deployed in Iraq in a buildup that reached its height in June.
Driscoll credited the decrease to a series of operations launched by the Iraqi government in the past two months to extend control over parts of the country that have been under the sway of armed Sunni Arab and Shiite militants.
They include crackdowns in the southern oil hub of Basra, the northern city of Mosul and the Baghdad district of Sadr City.
The late March operation in Basra triggered a fierce backlash by al-Sadr’s militiamen in Sadr City and across the overwhelmingly Shiite south, which drew in British and American forces.
The number of attacks nationwide spiked to about 850 in the week that the Basra crackdown began, according to the military’s chart. The figure has ebbed and flowed since.
The fighting in southern Iraq subsided a week after it started when a truce was reached between al-Sadr’s movement and the main Shiite factions in Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government.
Violence also has dropped in Sadr City since another deal was signed May 12, clearing the way for Iraqi troops to deploy throughout the heavily populated district, a bastion of al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia. But clashes have persisted in other sections of the capital, where U.S. and Iraqi forces are confronting al-Sadr’s militia.
While visiting reconstruction projects in the southern city of Najaf on Saturday, U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker noted that “you are not going to hear me say that al-Qaeda is defeated, but they’ve never been closer to defeat than they are now.”
The offensive against Sunni insurgents in Mosul has met with little resistance. Al-Maliki’s government had been promising a crackdown there since January, and many fighters are believed to have fled the city before it began. But Iraqi military officials say more than 1,000 suspects had been detained in Mosul.
Driscoll said the number of attacks nationwide had declined 70 percent since the crest of the troop buildup.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
