BAGHDAD — The U.S. military said Sunday that the number of attacks by militants in the last week dropped to a level not seen in Iraq since March 2004.
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 a chart provided by the military.
The announcement appeared aimed at allaying fears that an uprising by militiamen loyal to anti-American 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.
Navy Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, a military spokesman, credited the decrease to a series of operations launched by the Iraqi government in the last 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, which is a bastion of al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia.
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 at a news conference that al-Qaida “certainly are off-balance and on the run.” But he cautioned that the group remains a “very lethal threat.”
Driscoll said the number of attacks nationwide had declined 70 percent since the crest of the troop buildup. Most of the additional forces are expected to leave Iraq by the end of July.
The comments Sunday came amid a flurry of attacks in Baghdad and other areas. A roadside bomb targeted a patrol of U.S.-allied Sunni Arab fighters near a mosque in northern Baghdad, killing one of the so-called Awakening Council members and wounding three others, a police official said.
Bombings and shootings killed three people in and around the city of Baqouba, north of Baghdad.
Iraqi security forces also conducted their first major roundup of weapons caches in Sadr City, a move that could raise tensions in the military’s truce with the powerful Mahdi Army militia.
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