Security in Iraq is better than it has been at almost any time since the US-led invasion in 2003, but violence has crept up in recent weeks and there are fears about what will happen after US troops leave the country later this year.
At least 65 members of the Iraqi security forces were killed last month, according to the website icasualties.org, which tracks Iraqi and American casualties. That is a 465 per cent increase from January, when 14 Iraqi soldiers and police were killed.
Civilian casualties on a month-to-month basis have remained largely constant, suggesting that armed groups are increasingly targeting the security forces.
June, meanwhile, has been the deadliest month for American troops in Iraq since May 2009. Eleven soldiers have been killed, most of them in rocket attacks on US bases, according to the US defence department. American troops have been largely confined to their bases since US President Barack Obama declared an end to "combat operations" last year.
To be sure, Iraq is a far safer place now than it was several years ago. In summer 2007, at the peak of the country's violence, nearly 200 members of the security forces and 100 American soldiers were being killed each month; the number of civilian casualties spiked into the thousands.
The current level of violence is, in a sense, Iraq's "new normal," though that phrase seems to trivialise the deaths of hundreds of people each month.
"We shouldn't be surprised that there are more attacks on US personnel and Iraqi forces," Michael Wahid Hanna, a fellow at the Century Foundation in New York, said.
"It's something that has been talked about for a long time, in terms of the optics of how you want the Americans to leave."
Still, there are a few ominous signs for Iraq's long-term security, particularly the tension between security forces and local governments and the ongoing political paralysis in Baghdad.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/06/2011628105733700633.html
