Al-Qaeda in Iraq's ability to carry out large-scale attacks against civilians, and on US and Iraqi forces, has been "dramatically reduced," a US general said on Thursday.
"Their ability to move resources around Iraq, to bring resources from outside the country, has been dramatically reduced," General David Perkins, a senior spokesman for US-led forces in Iraq, told reporters.
"They now have to operate in much smaller cells, much less capable cells, so it's much more difficult for them to mount large numbers of attacks, and attacks that create large amount of casualties," Perkins said.
Over the past 60 days, US and Iraqi forces have arrested 136 people who Perkins said had "played key roles" in the shadowy Iraqi franchise of Osama bin Laden's global network.
Perkins said the troops killed three regional Al-Qaeda chiefs in the same period, including Abdelsalam al-Janabi, known as Hajji Hammadi, who was a veteran of the fighting in the western Sunni town of Fallujah in 2004.
He was "responsible for planning and conducting attacks against coalition forces, Iraqi forces, government officials and Iraqi citizens," Perkins said, adding that he was "linked to multiple assassinations of Sons of Iraq leaders."
The Sons of Iraq is the American term for local militias largely made up of former Sunni insurgents who allied with the US military in 2006 and 2007 and played a key role in improving security across the country.
Abu Ghazwan, another senior Al-Qaeda fighter killed by US and Iraqi forces, was a "critical AQI (Al-Qaeda in Iraq) leader" who was killed in an operation launched by one such militia and the Iraqi army, Perkins said.
"We had a support role only," he added, referring to the November 6 assault.
A day earlier, US troops killed Abu Qaswarah, a Moroccan-born Al-Qaeda leader Perkins said had brought funds and fighters from Europe to Iraq.
Abu Qaswarah had served as the leader of Al-Qaeda in the northern city of Mosul, Iraq's third largest, which the US military considers the last urban stronghold of the jihadist network.
"All this explains why we have witnessed a significant drop in the numbers of attacks throughout Iraq," Perkins said.
"Last year at this time we were experiencing an average of nearly 180 attacks a day. Now, we're down to 20 attacks a day."
Perkins attributed the decline in violence to US and Iraqi security forces operating in vast areas of the country where they had not previously deployed.
"We have taken away a lot of their freedom to manoeuvre. They used to have much larger areas where they were able to operate unopposed," he said.
He also said more Iraqis were reporting "terrorist activities" because they had greater confidence that security forces could protect them.
