http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/07/31/africa/ME-Iraq.php Suicide car bomb kills three Iraqi policemen
The Associated Press Thursday, July 31, 2008 BAGHDAD: July 2008 was the least deadly month for Americans in Iraq since the war began more than five years ago. An Associated Press tally showed at least 10 U.S. troop deaths as the month came to a close Thursday after the departure of the last surge brigade. Iraqi civilians also are dying in lower numbers with the war in its sixth year, even though a suicide bombing and rising ethnic tensions in northern Iraq showed the fragility of security successes. At least 510 Iraqi civilians and security force members were killed in July, according to an AP count. That's a 75 percent drop from more than 2,000 deaths in the same period last year, when a U.S. troop buildup aimed at quelling rampant Sunni-Shiite violence was nearing its peak. The past year's drastic decline in violence has led to increasing optimism among American commanders, who have been wary of declaring success after past lulls proved short-lived. It also has become a key issue in the U.S. presidential campaign. "The progress is still reversible," U.S. President George W. Bush said Thursday in Washington. But he added that a new "degree of durability in gains" should permit him to announce further troop reductions later this year. The last of five combat brigades sent as part of the so-called surge returned home earlier this month, leaving about 145,000 American troops in Iraq. That's still higher than the roughly 130,000 to 135,000 who were here before the troop increase. U.S. soldiers appear to be taking on more of a peacekeeping role after many Sunni and Shiite extremists agreed to stop fighting helping to drive down casualty figures. The U.S. military says a Sunni revolt against al-Qaida in Iraq and a truce by anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr have played large roles in quelling violence, along with the troop buildup and improvements in training Iraqi security forces. "The key mission for the United States looking forward is to maintain the cease-fires and prevent people from going back to the warpath," said Stephen Biddle, an analyst at the Council on Foreign Relations who has advised the U.S. military command in Iraq. "Their purpose in Iraq is increasingly changing from fighting a war to keeping a peace," he said in a telephone interview. The level of U.S. troop deaths has seesawed in recent months, but monthly figures are still well below the triple digit tallies seen before the security successes. The 10 American fatalities recorded in July which included six non-combat deaths was roughly a third of the 29 who died the previous month, according to AP figures. By contrast, 80 deaths occurred in July 2007. The July figures could rise as the military sometimes announces deaths days after they occur. "There is a reason to hope that it's going to stay very low," Biddle said, adding the current fighting focused on "dealing with holdouts rather than trying to break the back of an ongoing insurgency." Iraqi casualty figures also have declined despite continued bloodshed, including a series of suicide bombings this week that killed at least 60 people. July saw an average of at least 16 Iraqis killed each day compared to 65 each day in the same month last year. It was the third consecutive month this year with relatively lower casualties among Iraqi civilians. The change is most evident at the central morgue in Baghdad, a brick building in a mainly Shiite neighborhood. At the height of the bloodshed, the facility was overwhelmed by dozens of bodies received on a daily basis. Relatives were afraid to collect them because of militiamen controlling the area. Only 10 to 15 bodies are now received by the morgue each day, down from a past average of 125, the Health Ministry's general-inspector Adel Muhsin said. He added that some of the deaths were from natural causes. "The situation is better now in the morgue," he said. "We received far fewer bodies due to the improved security situation. The current rate is close to any normal country." Violence has been slower to decline in northern Iraq, where a suicide car bomber killed three policemen Thursday and a judge died of gunshot wounds a day after he was attacked in Mosul. Four bullet-riddled bodies, including three women, also were found in the city that has been the site of a U.S.-Iraqi offensive, a day after an al-Qaida front group warned it was launching a new campaign of violence there. Nineveh province, of which Mosul is the capital, had 25 percent of the civilian deaths for July, which is significantly higher than it has been for the past year. The U.S.-backed Iraqi military, meanwhile, pressed forward with a new operation meant to rout insurgents from rural safe havens to the south of Mosul in Diyala province. Insurgents clashed Thursday with U.S.-allied Sunni Arab fighters and killed one of them near the village of al-Waib, south of the provincial capital of Baqouba. The insurgents also wounded another fighter and a villager before escaping in a convoy, police said. But nearly 200 suspected militants have been captured since the operation began on Tuesday, Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mohammed al-Askari said. AP Television News footage on Thursday showed Iraqi troops transferring a handful of detainees in the back of a truck in Diyala. One of the soldiers was seen feeding a slice of orange to a blindfolded captive as others gave them water. Many Iraqis also sounded more hopeful about the sustainability of the improvements after enduring years of retaliatory sectarian violence that turned Baghdad into a maze of concrete walls and checkpoints. "The militiamen have been confined and now they cannot move freely," said Qais Rahim, a 30-year-old Shiite merchant. "I am optimistic that the worst has passed and we will not see much bodies in the city any more. Iraqi people are no longer interested in continuing the cycle of violence." But others echoed fears that the relative calm was because the militants had decided to lay low and wait for a chance to regroup. "It is true that the number of bodies has declined, but I think that this is a temporary calmness because there are sleeping cells that are ready to resume their killings anytime," said Mustafa Hussein, a 33-year-old engineer from the mainly Sunni neighborhood of Azamiyah. 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