The CIA has declared that al-Qaeda is virtually defeated in Iraq and that the country is seeing its lowest level of violence for four years.

Nineteen US military personnel have died in Iraq this month, according to the Pentagon, making May the least deadly month for US troops since the beginning of the war.

The deadliest month for US troops was May 2007, when 126 died as the insurgency in Baghdad raged.

The main reason for the drop in violence, which has also seen a big decline in Iraqi civilian deaths, is a ceasefire by the Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, whose forces have been directly confronted by US and Iraqi troops for over a month.

Rear Admiral Patrick Driscoll, a US spokesman, said violent incidents in Iraq were down 70 per cent since President Bush ordered a “surge” of 35,000 extra troops into the country last year.

In April, 75 Iraqi civilians, soldiers and police were killed, the lowest level since November 2004.

The relative calm produced by the Shia ceasefire has coincided with what the CIA is now calling the “near strategic defeat” of al-Qaeda in Iraq, and a growing rejection of the group's murderous ideology across the Middle East.

Michael Hayden, the CIA director, speaking to the Washington Post, said the terrorist group was essentially defeated in Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and had suffered “significant setbacks globally as a lot of the Islamic world pushes back on their form of Islam”.

Mr Hayden gave warning that al-Qaeda still posed a serious threat. Such caution appeared justified after two suicide bombers struck in northern Iraq on Thursday, killing a total of 20 people in separate attacks.

The attacks happened near Mosul, which the US military says is the last urban bastion of al-Qaeda in Iraq.

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