PHOENIX, ARIZONA: President Barack Obama warned yesterday that Iraqis would be tested by more “senseless” violence but vowed the United States would meet its deadline to pull out all troops by the end of 2011.

“As Iraqis take control of their destiny, they will be tested and targeted,” Obama told the Veterans of Foreign Wars organization in the southwestern state of Arizona.

“Those who seek to sow sectarian division will attempt more senseless bombings and more killing of innocents. This we know,” he said. Violence has fallen overall in Iraq, but attacks are continuing and three separate incidents in north and central Iraq on Monday killed at least eight people and wounded more than 40.

Attacks have targeted security forces and civilians, with many directed at specific ethnic and religious groups.

“But as we move forward, the Iraqi people must know that the United States will keep its commitments,” Obama said.

“The American people must know that we will move forward with our strategy, we will begin removing our combat brigades from Iraq later this year.

“We will remove all our combat brigades by the end of next August. And we will remove all our troops from Iraq by the end of 2011. And for America, the Iraq war will end.”

The number of violent deaths in Iraq fell by a third last month to 275 from 437 in June, following the pullout of US forces from urban areas. The figure for May was 155, the lowest of any month since the US-led invasion of 2003.

Under the terms of a security agreement signed by both countries, US troops are to leave Iraq by the end of 2011, but Iraqi government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said yesterday that the accord would be put to a referendum vote in January.

If Iraqi voters reject the agreement, the accord would automatically terminate in one year, bringing forward the deadline for US troop withdrawal to January 2011. Meanwhile, the United States is discussing arrangements that could see its troops work alongside Iraqi and Kurdish forces in disputed areas of northern Iraq, the senior American commander said yesterday.

General Ray Odierno said he was discussing an accord with ministers from the central government and the autonomous Kurdish region that could require that an exception be made to last year’s landmark US-Iraq security deal. “One of the things that we are recommending is that initially we would have a US, Iraqi security force, KRG (Kurdistan Regional Government) forces together in order to have confidence-building measures,” he told reporters in Baghdad.

He said the measures would “over time, revert to just KRG-IA (Iraqi Army) forces that work for the government of Iraq” in the disputed zones along the Kurdish region’s border with the rest of the country, primarily in Nineveh, Kirkuk and Diyala provinces.

Odierno said he has discussed the proposals with both Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and Kurdish regional president Massud Barzani, and that they have asked him to “to take a look at this” issue.

“We have Al-Qaeda exploiting this fissure that you’re seeing between the Arabs and the Kurds in Nineveh and the KRG, and what we’re trying to do is close that fissure, that seam,” he said.

Because the potential arrangements, which Odierno stressed were still in the early stages of discussion, would involve American troops being stationed in villages, an exception to the US-Iraq security accord may be necessary.

The deal required US forces to pull out of Iraqi cities at the end of June, and leave the country entirely by the end of 2011.

“Disputed territories are not in any cities, (they’re in) small villages, so we’ll have to come to agreement on this, but... there’s a potential for it (an exception to the deal) and that’s what we have to discuss, in the disputed areas,” he said.

Around 130,000 US troops remain in Iraq, but a brigade is set to leave the country by the end of August and not be replaced. The US military has not yet specified how many troops would be left in Iraq at that point.

Odierno said he did not yet know how many US troops would be required for the new arrangements, or which parts of Iraq they would be deployed from, but said he was confident the American timeline for withdrawing from Iraq would remain unchanged.

He said that if the proposals were implemented, they would not be in place “for long—if we do it, it’ll be just to build confidence in the forces, so they’re comfortable working together.”

They would first be set up in Nineveh province, “because that’s the one where we’re having the most violence, but we’ll also expand this to ... Kirkuk as well as Diyala province,” Odierno said. Kurdish leaders have long demanded that their autonomous region, currently comprising three provinces, be expanded to include historically Kurdish-inhabited parts of Nineveh and Diyala as well as all of Kirkuk.

Baghdad, however, says the Kurdish region’s borders should not extend past Arbil, Sulaimaniyah and Dohuk provinces.

Maliki visited the region on August 2 to meet Barzani and Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, who is Kurdish, and reopen dialogue in a meeting which both sides said afterwards was positive.

Though violence has dropped nationwide in recent months, attacks remain common in Baghdad and Mosul, the provincial capital of Nineveh province.