( Newsvinew ) The U.S. second-in-command in Iraq said Thursday that violence was down in Baghdad following the seven-month security operation in Baghdad, but that too many civilians are still dying.
Lt. Gen. Raymond Odierno told reporters that car bombs and suicide attacks in Baghdad have fallen to their lowest levels in a year, and civilian casualties have dropped from a high of about 32 to 12 per day. He also said violence in Baghdad had decreased 50 percent.
But he did not provide more specific timeframes.
"What we do know is that there has been a decline in civilian casualties, but I would say again that it's not at the level we want it to be," Odierno said. "There are still way too many civilian casualties inside of Baghdad and Iraq."
At least 26 people were killed or found dead nationwide, including three people who perished in a car bombing in Baghdad's Shiite enclave of Sadr City and the chief judge of the mostly Shiite Karrada district court.
In southern Iraq, a representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali al- Sistani , the nation's top Shiite cleric, was assassinated late Thursday, police said. Amjad al- Janabi and his driver were traveling west of Basra when gunmen opened fire on their vehicle, police said. At least three aides to al- Sistani have been slain since early August; the killings were believed to be part of a Shiite power struggle.
An Associated Press tally shows fewer deaths by car bomb or suicide attacks were recorded inside Baghdad in August than any other month in 2007, but that it was a deadly month nevertheless for civilians in the city.
While 139 Iraqis were killed in such attacks, 530 others lost their lives by other violent means within Baghdad, most turning up as bodies on the street - apparent victims of so-called sectarian death squads usually run by Shiite militias, according to AP figures.
Nationwide, at least 1,975 Iraqis were killed violently in August. That figure included 500 Yazidis , a Kurdish-speaking religious minority, reported killed in one multiple bombing attack in the north. An average of 64 Iraqis were reported killed every day in August throughout the country, according to the AP analysis.