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CNN reports from Iraq:

In the Sunni Arab-dominated provinces north and west of Baghdad and in the capital itself, local leaders have been cooperating with U.S. troops against the Islamic jihadists blamed for the worst attacks on civilians.

The massive car bombings that had become routine by the end of 2006 have subsided, and the Sunni-Shiite violence that raged after the February 2006 bombing of a Shiite shrine in Samarra has decreased, U.S. and Iraqi military officials say.

Children and teenagers play soccer along what were once some of the most notoriously dangerous streets in the capital, traffic has picked up and many markets have reopened.

Even a trickle of those who have been uprooted from their homes -- 2.2 million displaced and 2 million refugees -- have returned to their dwellings this year amid reports that security was improving, humanitarian groups and the Iraqi government say.

 

One of the biggest changes was the emergence of the so-called Awakening movement, predominantly among Iraq's Sunni Arab population -- which has been the backbone of the insurgency against U.S. troops.

Sunni sheiks in western Iraq, who had supported the insurgency, turned against the jihadists and began policing their own towns -- soon with U.S. help.

The movement spread to Baghdad, the Diyala province and other regions, with the U.S. military sponsoring a key component of the grass-roots effort -- the Concerned Local Citizens program. CLC members, many of whom are paid by the U.S. military, resemble a neighborhood watch group and conduct security support tasks, such as manning checkpoints.

Two December figures serve as examples of the recent drop: the number of U.S. troop deaths that month was 23, the second-lowest monthly death toll of the war, and the number of civilian deaths was 481 -- the lowest monthly total of the year, according to the Interior Ministry.

In his end of the year letter to troops, Petraeus said attacks per week were "down approximately 60 percent from June 2007 and are now at a level last seen consistently in the early summer of 2005."