Al Qaeda fleeing Mosul, Iraq says

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 US-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 and around the city of Baqouba, north of Baghdad, where US forces waged a fierce offensive last year to break Al Qaeda 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 media.

Iraqi security forces also conducted their first major roundup of weapons caches in Baghdad's Shi'ite 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 US and Iraqi military have called Mosul the last remaining urban stronghold for Al Qaeda in Iraq after successes against the terror network in Baqouba and major towns in the western province of Anbar.

Iraqi Defense Ministry spokesman, Major General Mohammed 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 Qaeda and other Sunni insurgent fighters were believed to have been in the city before the sweep 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 US military spokesman Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll. "We will not allow them to reorganize themselves."