Top US general hails security progress in Baghdad

BAGHDAD, Aug 24 (Reuters) The top U S general in the West Asia today praised a major U S-led security clampdown in Baghdad, saying it has brought ''great progress'' and said that Iraq was far from civil war.

''I think that there has been great progress on the security front in Baghdad recently. We are very optimistic that the situation will stabilise,'' General John Abizaid told reporters in Baghdad on a day when three car bombs and two roadside bombs were reported in the capital, wounding 24 people.

Abizaid, who met General John Casey, the top U S commander in Iraq, said comments he made earlier this month before the U S Senate in which he said the sectarian violence in Iraq was the worst he had seen had been misrepresented.

''I never said that Iraq was one foot from civil war. It is amazing how you say things sometimes and they get reported differently. I believe that there is danger of civil war in Iraq, but only a danger. I think Iraq is far from it.'' The U S military has sent reinforcements to Baghdad to help the government take back the streets from sectarian militias and death squads, blamed for killing thousands.

It has boosted the number of its troops in the country from 127,000 to 135,000 as part of the clampdown, which U S officials say has already seen a sharp decline in violence in some volatile Sunni and Shi'ite neighbourhoods.

REUTERS LL HT1702