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In a 98-minute video with English subtitles released to coincide with the Basra handover, al-Zawahiri said recent reports from Iraq reveal “an increase in the strength of the mujahidin and a deterioration in the Americans’ conditions, despite their desperate attempts to deceive and mislead.

“And the decision of the British to flee is sufficient proof,” al-Zawahiri said in a video released to jihadist forums yesterday and translated by SITE Intelligence Group, a private US company that tracks jihadist activities.

Interpreting such events as proof that “the condition of the Iraqi Jihad is - overall – excellent,” al-Zawahiri said US claims of progress including in the September 2007 report to US Congress by General David Petraeus and the US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, were “empty propaganda meant to cover up the American failure in Iraq”.

Of the 18,000 British troops in Iraq at the end of the 2003 invasion - a number which dwindled to just 8,000 by the end of that year as resources were diverted back to Afghanistan - just 4,500 remain.

The handover, which leaves UK forces in an "overwatch" role, only providing military support when specifically invited by Iraqi authorities, paves the way for the withdrawal of a further 2,000 troops in the spring

Although violence in the oil-rich province has substantially decreased since troops withdrew from Basra Palace to an airport outside the city in September, Islamist extremism is on the rise – with police reporting over 40 murders of unveiled women in the past five months - and the Iranian influence is increasingly visible on the streets.

The withdrawal from the palace, under virtual siege from Mahdi Army rockets and mortars, was only able to take place after a ceasefire was secretly negotiated with militants. Security remains so fragile that a recent forum to discuss post-handover economic initiatives had to take place within the heavily-guarded confines of the British military base.

But Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Minister, insisted Iraqi forces were now able to cope with the security challenges Basra presented.

“We have never denied that the situation in Basra is far from ideal. I am not trying to suggest that it is," he said.

“We would like the situation to be far better than it is, but nonetheless we have handed over Basra to a confident Iraqi security force who believe they are up to the job of running that province and putting it in the right direction.

“So there is hope for the future. The final story is not written yet.

“We will continue to assist, we will continue to support, we will continue to try and we will get more into the civilian areas of assisting economic reconstruction, which is surely the future of Basra.”

To many in the British military, however, Basra has left a sour taste in the mouth. Last week a British infantry officer wrote on the internet forum Arrse: “To anyone who thinks we have made it a better place, we haven’t.”

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