US to cut 12,000 troops in Iraq by September

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-03-09 08:29

BAGHDAD – About 12,000 US soldiers will leave Iraq by September, officials said Sunday, hours after a Baghdad suicide bomber killed about 30 people in a chilling reminder of the nation's still-shaky security.

The withdrawals, which will most likely come from Baghdad and Anbar province, once main battlefields of the war, are the first step in keeping with President Barack Obama's pledge to end America's role in the war.

A US soldier is reflected on glass screen as he stands guard inside a restaurant during a patrol in Kerbala, 80 km (50 miles) southwest of Baghdad March 7, 2009. [Agencies]

That would bring US troop levels to more than 120,000 -- still a substantial force. As part of the drawdown, the US will turn over 74 facilities and areas under its control to the Iraqis by the end of March.

All 4,000 British soldiers remaining in Iraq are also scheduled to leave by September.

A US spokesman, Maj. Gen. David Perkins, said Iraq's security has "greatly improved, moving from a very unstable to a stable position." He said violence was at its lowest level since the summer of 2003.

Sunday's attack was the worst in Baghdad in months, injuring about 60 people beyond the dozens killed. But in a news conference hours later, Perkins described it as a sign that US-led coalition forces have militants on the run.

"We know that al-Qaida, although greatly reduced in capability and numbers, still is desperate to maintain relevance here in Iraq," Perkins said.

The suicide bomber detonated his explosives as he drove his motorcycle into a group of people, many of them police recruits, waiting near a side entrance of Baghdad's main police academy in a mainly Shiite area of the city.

The heavily fortified academy has been hit by several bombings. A Dec. 1 suicide bombing there killed at least 33 and wounded dozens, including four US soldiers and an Iraqi general.

Iraqi and US forces sealed off the scene Sunday, allowing only ambulances and fire engines to enter. Nervous Iraqi troops fired in the air to prevent onlookers and reporters from getting too close.

Haitham Fadhel said he was standing in one of three lines of recruits arriving for their first day of special guard training courses. He was knocked unconscious and wounded by shrapnel, but called himself lucky. Two friends were killed.

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