Security forces in Baghdad have full control in only 40 percent of the city five months into a pacification campaign, a top American general said on Saturday as US troops began an offensive against two al-Qaida strongholds on the capital's southern outskirts.

Lieutenant General Raymond Odierno said American troops launched the offensive in Baghdad's Arab Jabour and Salman Pac neighborhoods on Friday night. It was the first time in three years US soldiers have entered those areas, where al-Qaida militants build car bombs and launch Katyusha rockets at American bases and Shi'ite Muslim neighborhoods.

Odierno said there was a long way to go in retaking the city from Shi'ite Muslim militias, Sunni Arab insurgents and al-Qaida terrorists. He said only about "40 percent is really very safe on a routine basis" - with about 30 percent lacking control and a further 30 percent suffering "a high level of violence."

"There's about 30 percent of the city that needs work," Odierno said. "Those are the areas that we consider to be the hot spots, which usually have a Sunni-Shi'ite fault line, and also areas where al-Qaida has decided to make a stand."

(China Daily via agencies June 18, 2007)