Iraqi: Al-Qaida is on the run

By Lee Keath (The Associated Press)

BAGHDAD – Al-Qaida fighters and other Sunni insurgents have largely scattered from the northern city of Mosul in the face of a U.S.-Iraqi sweep, fleeing to desert areas further south, an Iraqi commander said Sunday. He vowed the forces will not allow them to regroup.

The U.S. military said al-Qaida in Iraq was “off-balance and on the run” but remains a very lethal threat, tempering remarks by the U.S. ambassador a day earlier that the terror network was closer than ever to being defeated.

The comments came amid a flurry of attacks in Baghdad and other areas, most likely attributable to Sunni insurgents. 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 an around the city of Baqouba, north of Baghdad, where U.S. forces waged a fierce offensive last year to break al-Qaida domination of the city, police said. Police officials in both cities spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.

Iraqi security forces also made their first major discovery of a weapons cache in Baghdad’s Shiite district of Sadr City, where troops and police deployed last week – a move that could raise tensions in the military’s truce with the powerful Mahdi Army militia.

The U.S. and Iraqi military have called Mosul the last remaining urban stronghold for al-Qaida in Iraq after successes against the terror network in Baqouba and major towns in the western province of Anbar.

Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Mohamed al-Askari said security forces had arrested some 1,030 people during their sweep the past week in Mosul. Another 251 detainees had been freed after being cleared of suspicion, he said.

He said some 2,000 al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgent fighters were believed to have been in the city before the swept was launched. He could not say how many remained in the city , but said most who managed to flee were believed to be taking refuge in deserts near the cities of Tikrit and Ramadi, further south.

“Now they are in a confused situation.” He said at a joint news conference with U.S. military spokesman Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll. “We will not allow them to reorganize themselves.”