BAGHDAD, Nov 29: Iraq’s national security adviser said on Tuesday up to a fifth of the US troops in the country could withdraw early next year as the performance of local security forces improves.

Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said big improvements by Iraqi army and other security forces and a recent reduction in guerrilla attacks marked ‘the beginning of the end of the insurgency’, which has raged for more than two years.

“I believe that early next year up to 30,000 troops can leave Iraq because we believe that we have laid down the groundwork for them to leave,” he said in an interview when asked about the withdrawal of American troops.

“We have tipped the balance now to our favour and the momentum is only going to get better,” he said.

Contradicting assessments of top US generals who say very few Iraqi units are currently capable of fighting alone, Rubaie said 50 per cent of Iraqi troops were ready to take on guerrillas without the help of American forces or advisers.

Rubaie, a member of a joint Iraqi-US committee responsible for building the framework for troop reductions, said a full American pullout was unlikely before the end of 2007.

Defence officials have said the Pentagon plans to shrink the US troop presence in Iraq from its current level of around 155,000 to about 138,000 after the Dec. 15 Iraqi elections. A drawdown of 30,000 would leave around 125,000 troops.

Rubaie said the number of guerilla attacks had dropped by half in the last three weeks and Iraqi forces had cut off guerillas’ supply lines and gone on the offensive rather than merely reacting to violence.

Guerillas have killed tens of thousands of Iraqi security forces and civilians in a campaign aimed at toppling the US-backed government.

Previous reductions in guerilla attacks have been followed by a surge in suicide bombings, shootings and assassinations.

Violence is also expected to pick up in the coming weeks as the campaigning for December’s election steps up.

But Rubaie, a former exile who worked as a physician in Britain, was optimistic that a resurgence in violence would not happen again, saying the resistance was in ‘disarray’.—Reuters