The announcement Sunday was further evidence of a decline in violence since a significant troop increase last year, but the tragedy of one family in Kirkuk is a reminder of just how dangerous life in Iraq continues to be.
In the past year, Khudaer Muhammad Abdullah, 49, endured the loss of his two older sons. On Sunday he lost his last son, and his 4-year-old daughter is now hospitalized with serious wounds. His last son, Muhammad Khudaer Muhammad, 7, was killed when part of a rocket-propelled grenade exploded on a vacant lot where he was playing soccer with three other children, according to police reports.
Muhammad was killed instantly in the blast. His friend, Ahmed Hamid Jelu, 9, lost both his legs and died at a hospital shortly afterward.
Two other children - Hassan Dhaya, 7, and Muhammad's sister, Ahlan Khudaer Muhammad - were seriously wounded.
Abdullah, a shepherd, said that he had just returned from leading his sheep to pasture when Muhammad asked for permission to play soccer with some friends in the lot across the road from the family's home.
About 15 minutes later, around 3 p.m., Abdullah heard an explosion.
"Their bodies were completely torn apart by the blast," Abdullah said.
That was just the latest tragedy to befall Abdullah's family. He already had lost his two older sons, Muazzaz, 19, and Saad, 21, as a result of the war, he said.
"Today, I lost the last son," Abdullah said. "I have no one left except my daughter," he added. Ahlan suffered abdominal injuries, but she is expected to survive.
"Where should we go now?" Abdullah asked. "Death faces us everywhere."
That may be a predicament familiar to families across Iraq, but the U.S. military was still eager to publicize the decline in deaths. "Thanks to the strategic partnership we have with the coalition forces, the Iraqi security forces and the people of Iraq, the overall situation here with regard to security continues to improve," Brigadier General David Perkins, a spokesman for the U.S.-led forces in Iraq, said at a news conference.
He declined to give a breakdown of the number of military and civilian deaths. But according to icasualties.org, which tracks U.S. military deaths, 13 U.S. service members were killed in October.
Despite those improvements, violence continued to rage in the northern city of Mosul, where at least 15 Iraqis were killed and 32 were wounded last week.
On Sunday, two Iraqi soldiers were killed when a roadside bomb exploded in the path of their convoy in the eastern neighborhood of Karama in Mosul, said a security official.
Baghdad bombings kill 7A string of bombings killed seven people and wounded at least 33 others in Baghdad on Monday, including a senior Oil Ministry official, The Associated Press reported, quoting the authorities.
Six people died when two bombs exploded in Tahariyat Square in central Baghdad during the morning rush hour. The police said 21 people were wounded, including 10 policemen and two women.
Also Monday, Abdul-Sahib Salman Qutub, a senior under secretary in the Oil Ministry, was slightly wounded when a bomb went off at his house as he left for work, said Assem Jihad, a ministry spokesman. Jihad said Qutub's driver was seriously wounded.
Another bomb exploded around noon near a police patrol in west Baghdad, wounding one policeman and a civilian, the police said.
In Baquba a car bomb exploded near the Diyala provincial council headquarters, killing two policemen and a 10-year old girl, officials said. Eight people were wounded in the blast.
