By Damien McElroy Foreign Affairs Correspondent
AMERICA is expected to confirm tomorrow that troop losses in Iraq have dropped to an 18-month low, as its surge of forces resulted in dramatic security gains in cities and provinces once deemed lost to al-Qa'eda.
The military death toll for October stood at 33 yesterday, averaging out to just over one per day or less than one third the rate recorded in June. It is the lowest figure since March 2006.
Parallel declines in the numbers of injured troops and Iraqi victims of violence have also been recorded. Even so, this year is set to be the most lethal of the four-year military campaign in Iraq, with 836 troops killed so far, 13 short of the 2004 high, according to the website Iraq Coalition Casualty Count.
Gen David Petraeus, the top military official in Iraq, said this week that the coalition had driven al-Qa'eda out of every major stronghold in Baghdad, but he refused to declare victory against the group, warning that it remained capable of mounting devastating, spectacular attacks.
Meanwhile, British forces are to transfer responsibility for security in Basra province to Iraq's government in December, it was announced last night. Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, and David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said that British troops would watch over the region while Iraqi police forces would take on greater responsibility.
Mr Browne is expected today to agree a date in mid-December when he meets the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, in Baghdad.
Iraq experts trace the security turnaround to a movement in Anbar province known as "the Awakening''. Toby Dodge, an Iraq specialist at the University of London, warned that failure to achieve political reconciliation could derail recent improvements. "Anbar is amazing,'' he said. "What has been delivered there is a comparatively stable place from the seventh circle of hell and what has happened in Baghdad is nothing short of spectacular.
"But Petraeus himself has made clear that there is no military solution to the problems in Iraq, only a political solution and there has been no progress in that area. We still have a government that is dominated by the main players in a civil war.''
