Al Qaeda in Iraq "never closer to defeat"-US envoy

File under: Ryan Crocker offers up a pony and its peeing rainbows.

The U.S. ambassador to Iraq praised Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki on Saturday for cracking down on Shi'ite militias and Sunni Arab militants and said al Qaeda in Iraq had never been closer to defeat.

"You are not going to hear me say that al Qaeda is defeated, but they've never been closer to defeat than they are now," Ryan Crocker told reporters during a visit to the Shi'ite holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala in southern Iraq.

Maliki, a Shi'ite, has led a crackdown on Sunni Arab militants in the northern city of Mosul, where the government says al Qaeda fighters took refuge after being driven from other areas.

Maliki has also confronted Shi'ite militias in Baghdad's Sadr City slum and in the southern city of Basra.

Crocker said it was important that Iraqi forces were leading operations in Basra and Mosul -- where U.S.-led coalition forces played a supporting role -- and acting alone in Sadr City.

"That's a level of capability that simply wasn't possible even six months ago," he said.

"The government, the prime minister are showing a clear determination to take on extremist armed elements that challenge the authority of the government and they've made it clear that they will do that no matter who these elements are," he said.

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