Forty people who were allegedly senior al Qaeda members in Iraq were either captured or killed in November, including a senior adviser to the Sunni Islamist group's leader, the US military claimed today.
Violence levels in Iraq have fallen to their lowest levels since January 2006 after a security crackdown, which included a deployment of an extra 30,000 US troops, targeting al Qaeda and Shi'ite militias across the country.
But while attacks have fallen by 55 per cent since the additional troops were fully deployed in mid-June, allowing thousands of Iraqis who had fled abroad to return home, US commanders say violence could easily flare again.
"There is no question that al Qaeda in Iraq remains a dangerous and vicious threat to the Iraqi people and to the security forces and the coalition forces," US military spokesman Major-General Kevin Bergner told a news conference.
"Al Qaeda continues to try to seek spectacular attacks which were so damaging and which continue to be so damaging in inciting sectarian tensions ... we still have a tough fight ahead of us even amidst the progress," he said.
Bergner said one al Qaeda member killed last month had been identified as Abu Maysara, a Syrian he said was a senior adviser to al Qaeda in Iraq leader, Egyptian Abu Ayyub al-Masri.
He said Maysara was killed along with five other al Qaeda fighters in a raid on a building near Samarra, 100 km (60 miles) north of Baghdad on November 17th.