The number of US military deaths in Iraq has reached 2,500, the Pentagon said on today.
In Washington, the Pentagon also said 18,490 US troops had been wounded in the war, which began in March 2003 with a US-led invasion to topple President Saddam Hussein. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed.
Tourists gather around anti-war activists from various organizations as they lay between mock coffins, representing dead US soldiers, during their protest outside the White House in Washington yesterday.
The news came after a senior Iraqi official in Baghdad said his country's security forces had seized al-Qaeda in Iraq documents giving key information about the militant group's network and the whereabouts of its leaders.
"We believe this is the beginning of the end of al-Qaeda in Iraq,"told a televised news conference in the Iraqi capital.
Mr Rubaie said earlier this year the insurgency against the US-backed, Shia-led government had been defeated. But violence has continued to rage across Iraq, killing hundreds of people and showing no signs of abating.
Iraqi and US officials have also in the past said al-Qaeda, blamed for some of the bloodiest attacks in Iraq in the last three years, was on the defensive.
National security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie
They have hailed last week's death of al-Qaeda leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in a US air raid as a major blow to the insurgency, while cautioning it would not end violence.
About 50,000 Iraqi troops, supported by more than 7,000 US-led forces, launched a security crackdown in Baghdad this week aimed at putting further pressure on militants.
Al-Qaeda has vowed to fight on and its new leader in Iraq, little known Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, vowed in a statement earlier this week to avenge Zarqawi's death. The US military said it believed his real name was Abu Ayyub al-Masri. Al-Masri, an Egyptian, trained in Afghanistan and formed al-Qaeda's first cell in Baghdad.
Meanwhile, gunmen shot dead 10 labourers as they were heading to work in the Iraqi city of Baquba today.