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Gates foresees shrinking US combat role in Iraq

Car bombs kill 12

AP, AFP, Baghdad
Defence Secretary' Robert Gates said yesterday that although no additional US combat brigades are to withdraw from Iraq this year, he expects the US combat role to keep shrinking.
"We are clearly in a mission transition," he told reporters on an overnight flight here from Washington.
But within minutes of his arrival, two car bombings in Baghdad killed at least 12 people and wounded 32 others, security officials said.
Two near simultaneous car bombings in central Baghdad on Monday killed 12 people and wounded 32, security officials told AFP
The victims were ferried to four city hospitals after the bombs went off within minutes of each other in the central district of Karrada, the
officials said.
More than 30 cars were burnt in the explosions, they added.
The attacks took place near a courthouse in the Karrada district at around 11:45 am (0845 GMT).
US troops will increasingly play a backup role, Gates said, as Iraqi security forces take on more of the responsibility for fighting an insurgency that has lost much of its power and influence over the past year.
"The areas in which we are seriously engaged (in fighting) will, I think, continue to narrow," Gates said.
The No 2 US commander in Iraq, Lt Gen Lloyd Austin, told reporters later at the main US military headquarters outside Baghdad that he remains optimistic that the trend of improving security will continue. He said key measures of security have improved about 80 percent
over one year ago; while "there is a degree of fragility" to the situation, he said, it is "somewhat less" fragile that just a few months ago.
The biggest uncertainty at the moment, Austin said, is the central government's inability thus far to pass the legislation needed to hold provincial elections across the country before the end of the year. Gates is meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki later Monday.
Austin also said the al-Qaeda organisation in Iraq remains a source of concern.
"al-Qaeda is in disarray but they have notyet been defeated,"he said.
Iraq currently has primary responsibility for security in 11 of its 18 provinces. It regained responsibility for Anbar province, at one time the stronghold of the Sunni insurgency, a few weeks ago.