(Adds new offensive planned in Babel) By Dean Yates BAGHDAD, Dec 9 (Reuters) - A roadside bomb killed the Iraqi police chief of a predominantly Shi'ite province south of Baghdad on Sunday just hours after U.S. military commanders had publicly praised his efforts to secure his region. The attack on Major-General Qais al-Mamouri's convoy follows a threat by an al Qaeda-linked group to carry out car bomb attacks and strikes on Iraqi security forces and neighbourhood security patrols working with U.S. soldiers. Police said Mamouri, police chief of Babel province, was killed when the bomb struck his convoy near the local capital Hilla, 100 km (60 miles) south of Baghdad. They said it was the seventh attempt on Mamouri's life since he became Babel police chief a few years ago. Police immediately declared a curfew in Hilla. At a media briefing hours before the blast, U.S. commanders responsible for areas including Babel had lauded Mamouri. "We're very lucky in Babel province to have Major-General Qais, who is a very good Iraqi police chief for that province," Colonel Tom James, commander of a U.S. combat brigade in north Babel, told reporters. "He is committed to securing Iraq for the people, the population. He does not see anything through a sectarian lens, it's all about Iraqi law, and the people see that." Asked for the U.S. military's reaction to his assassination, a spokeswoman said: "This is a terrible loss." A roadside bomb killed the police chief of Diwaniya province in southern Iraq in August. Other provincial police chiefs across Iraq have survived numerous assassination attempts. During the media briefing, military commanders said about 1,400 U.S. soldiers would launch a fresh assault next week against al Qaeda gunmen who are regrouping around Babel. The offensive would target al Qaeda militants in small hamlets and fishing villages along the Euphrates River valley. Babel is expected to be one of the next provinces to revert to the control of Iraqi security forces. Iraqi forces have taken back security responsibility from multinational forces for eight of the country's 18 provinces. VIOLENCE DROPS The U.S. military says Iraq's forces have improved steadily but there is no timetable for a rush of provincial handovers as the United States begins the gradual withdrawal of more than 20,000 soldiers by July 2008. That drawdown has been made possible by falls in violence across most of Iraq following a build-up of U.S. forces. U.S. military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith told a separate news conference that attacks had fallen 60 percent since June. The number of roadside bombings fell 15 percent in November from October, he said. Smith was speaking before news of Mamouri's death was announced. U.S. military commanders have also reported a decrease in attacks using Iranian-made weapons, a development some Iraqi officials hope will lead to better dialogue between Washington and Tehran over security in Iraq. On Sunday, Iran's Foreign Ministry said Iraqi officials had proposed holding the next round of talks between the United States and Iran to discuss security in Iraq in January. Officials from the two foes, at odds over who is to blame for violence in Iraq and over Iran's disputed nuclear ambitions, have held three rounds of discussions in Baghdad since May. The last meeting was in August. "We are now studying the proposal and we will decide about the level of participation," Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said. This year's Iranian-U.S. talks on Iraq's security eased a diplomatic freeze that lasted almost three decades. (Additional reporting by Paul Tait, Mussab al-Khairalla, Alaa Shahine and Aws Qusay in Baghdad and Edmund Blair in Tehran; Editing by Tim Pearce)
