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U.S. Military Claims Success Curbing Attacks in Iraq With Iranian Weapons

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, addressed American troops on Monday at a base in Mosul, Iraq.Credit...Chad J. Mcneeley/D.O.D., via Associated Press

MOSUL, Iraq — Attacks by insurgents using what American analysts say are advanced Iranian weapons have dropped significantly over the last few weeks, senior American military officials said Monday, citing a two-track campaign of allied raids on Iranian-backed militants and official Iraqi protests to Tehran.

Powerful roadside bombs that can puncture armored vehicles and lethal rockets fired at American military positions have caused a noticeable increase in violence this summer, including the highest number of American combat fatalities in three years. Top American officials say Iran is supplying the weapons in order to claim credit for driving out the withdrawing American forces.

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, described the military and diplomatic offensive for the first time on Monday, as he arrived in Iraq for consultations with commanders and to press the Iraqi government for a quick decision on whether it would request an enduring American military commitment beyond the end of the year.

He said the rise in attacks had prompted the United States to urge the Iraqi leadership to take “steps that we felt needed to be taken to address this significant uptick of violence, particularly the violence supported by Iran.”

Admiral Mullen declined to provide specifics in acknowledging that military actions had been carried out against Iranian-backed insurgents.

“There have been actions taken, which we always will do, to defend ourselves and to make sure our troops are O.K.,” he noted. “So we’ve done this. The Iraqi security forces have done it. The political leadership has addressed it.”

Admiral Mullen said the efforts would have to be sustained, but expressed satisfaction with the results so far. “You’ve seen in the last two or three weeks a dramatic reduction,” he said.

In June, according to military statistics, 15 American troops died in Iraq, 9 from rockets traced to Iran; that was the highest monthly level of combat fatalities in three years.

Last month, in his first visit to Iraq as defense secretary, Leon E. Panetta said the Iranian weapons smuggled into Iraq were such a threat that the United States was “going to take this on, straight on.”

Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, the senior American commander in Iraq, confirmed Monday that “we have increased pressure on these networks, working with our Iraqi counterparts.”

He said that in three of the raids, security forces had also detained people believed to have been directly associated with the Iranian attacks.

On his visit, Admiral Mullen repeated a message from Washington that the leadership in Baghdad must decide quickly whether it wanted continued American military support.

Without an official request by the Iraqi government, all American military units must leave the country by the end of the year, as required by a bilateral agreement.

Although significant gaps in Iraqi military capabilities remain — in particular air power — a political deadlock in Baghdad has prevented the government from reaching a decision.

“We need to know now,” Admiral Mullen said, noting that the “planning factors and physics issues” mean that it takes weeks if not months to organize a sustained American military presence.

Asked whether it already was too late for Iraq to request that American troops stay on beyond the end of the year, Admiral Mullen said, “We’re not very far away.” The most significant protests against a continued military relationship with the United States come from Moktada al-Sadr, a Shiite leader with strong ties to Iran.

There are more centrist members of the Iraqi political elite who want to sustain the military relationship, but even they see little political benefit in actively campaigning for a long-term American presence.

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section A, Page 8 of the New York edition with the headline: U.S. Military Claims Success Curbing Attacks in Iraq With Iranian Weapons. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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