Blasts in various parts of Iraq Wednesday left at least 15 dead, including a US soldier, and 49 injured - as a security official insisted violence had decreased by 85 per cent in many provinces, according to dpa. Qassem Atallah, Iraqi security forces spokesman, told reporters that the average of terrorist attacks last month was 25 per day, compared to 160 in June 2007. "This is clear evidence that terrorist groups and outlaws have been defeated," Atallah said, adding Baghdad security operations were working hard to provide peaceful atmosphere for embassies to resume work. A US soldier was killed and two wounded when unknown gunmen attacked their patrol in the northern city of Samraa, Abdel-Latif Rayan, a US military spokesman told Voices of Iraq VOI news agency. The soldier, the third to die in Iraq in July, brings up the number of soldiers killed since the US-led invasion in 2003 to 4,117. In the northern city of Mosul, a suicide bomber targeting a military convoy carrying an army general killed at least eight persons and injured 27, police said Wednesday. A car bomb packed with explosives hit the motorcade of the operational commander of Nineveh province, General Riyad Tawfik, in east Mosul, a security official told VOI. Khaled Abdel-Sattar, the spokesman for the Nineveh operations command, said that seven of the general's guards are among the injured. "Tawfik was 100 meters from the site of the attack," Abdel-Sattar was quoted by VOI as saying. "Four civilian cars and three Iraqi military vehicles were burnt in the attack," he added. Militants from al-Qaeda in Iraq were believed to be regrouping in Mosul, the capital of Nineveh and Iraq's third largest city, after they were driven out of Baghdad and other Sunni areas. Iraqi and US troops have been embroiled in an offensive targeting Sunni insurgents since May. In western Anbar province, a bomb went off outside a bank in central Fallujah, 45 kilometres west of Baghdad, but did not cause any casualties. Police and crowds who gathered at the scene were then hit by a second bomb. Four policemen and two civilians were killed and 20 injured, reported the Dubai-based al-Arabiya news broadcaster citing Iraqi police sources. Last month, the US military indefinitely delayed a scheduled transfer of security responsibilities in Anbar to Iraqi troops, citing bad weather. Meanwhile, an Iraqi army force arrested six gunmen, believed to be members of al-Qaeda organisation, including a senior element, in western Baghdad, said the spokesman for Baghdad operations command. The senior member was identified as Ayad Najem al-Sewaidawi. The source added that another force had seized weapons and explosives cache, in southern Baghdad.
