U.S. officials blame al-Qaida in Iraq for most big bombings in the country, including an attack on a revered Shiite shrine in Samarrah in February 2006 that set off a wave of sectarian killings that nearly tipped Iraq into all-out civil war.A build-up of U.S. troops last year allowed the military to conduct a series of offensives against the group. The emergence of Sunni Arab tribal security units also helped to provide intelligence on al-Qaida activities.
The result was that al-Qaida in Iraq has largely been pushed out of Baghdad and its former stronghold in the western province of Anbar to areas in northern Iraq, such as Mosul.
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