BAGHDAD - Al Qaeda remains a dangerous foe in Iraq despite a decline in violence, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq said on Thursday, a day after the deadliest bombing in Baghdad since September.
Northeast of Baghdad, up to nine Iraqi security forces personnel were killed in a gun battle with suspected al Qaeda fighters in Diyala province, security officials said.
Violence has fallen across Iraq but U.S. commanders say regions north of Baghdad, such as Diyala, remain at threat after security crackdowns this year squeezed al Qaeda and other fighters out of Baghdad and western Anbar province.
"We have to be careful not to get feeling too successful," General David Petraeus said before he met visiting U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday, a day after a car bomb killed 15 people in the worst attack in Baghdad since September.
"We see this as requiring a continued amount of very tough work. We see al Qaeda as a very, very dangerous adversary still able to carry out attacks and an adversary that we must continue to pursue," Petraeus told reporters.
He said the Sunni Islamist militants were likely to attempt spectacular attacks in a push against U.S. and Iraqi forces.
A militant group linked to al Qaeda in Iraq issued a threat on the Internet earlier this week vowing to launch a wave of car bomb attacks and strikes on Iraqi security forces.
In Diyala, nine Kurdish troops were killed when suspected al Qaeda gunmen attacked an Iraqi army checkpoint, police said. The victims were initially identified as policemen but police later said they were Kurdish soldiers.
A spokesman for the Kurdish Peshmerga forces from Iraq's largely autonomous region of Kurdistan said eight Peshmerga troops were killed. Three gunmen were killed, he said.
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