Attacks throughout Iraq have dropped by 80 percent since March and U.S. forces are preparing to withdraw to their bases next June. But troops will likely stay near the northern city of Mosul where U.S. and Iraqi forces continue to battle the remnants of Al Qaida forces.

The Christian Science Monitor reports Al Qaida fighters consider the northern city a key stategic point in its self-declared Islamic state. The city's mayor says they can't go it alone.

"In this climae we can't do without American forces," Mosul Mayor Zuhair al-Aaraji told the newspaper. "Our government is still too weak to fully support the Iraqi forces."

The Status of Forces Agreement, approved by Iraqi lawmakers this past month, allows some American fighters to remain active in urban areas alongside Iraq's national forces.

Mosul is about 60 percent Sunni Arab and 25 percent Kurdish. The majority of the Iraqi soldiers deployed there are Kurdish. The city has large numbers of nearly every minority and remains a tinderbox for sectarian violence, the newspaper reports.

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