Baghdad ? Al-Qaida fighters and other Sunni insurgents have largely scattered from the northern city of Mosul in the face of a U.S.-Iraqi sweep, fleeing to desert areas further south, an Iraqi commander said Sunday. He vowed the forces will not allow them to regroup.

The U.S. military said al-Qaida in Iraq was “off-balance and on the run” but remains a very lethal threat, tempering remarks by the U.S. ambassador a day earlier that the terror network was closer than ever to being defeated.

The comments came amid a flurry of attacks in Baghdad and other areas, most likely attributable to Sunni insurgents. A roadside bomb targeted a patrol of U.S.-allied Sunni Arab fighters near a mosque in northern Baghdad, killing one of the so-called Awakening Council members and wounding three others, a police official said.

Bombings and shootings killed three people in and around the city of Baqouba, north of Baghdad, where U.S. forces waged a fierce offensive last year to break al-Qaida domination of the city, police said. Police officials in both cities spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the press.