BAGHDAD — Iraq’s Prime Minister said US and Iraqi forces have chased Al-Qaeda in Iraq out of Baghdad since a security crackdown began a year ago, and he promised to pursue insurgents who have fled northward.

Underscoring the rising violence in northern Iraq, a double suicide bombing targeted Shiite worshippers Friday as they left weekly prayer services in the northwestern city of Tal Afar, killing at least four people and wounding 17, officials said.

Police said guards at the Juwad mosque prevented a larger casualty toll by opening fire on the two attackers, including an elderly man, before they could reach the bulk of worshippers emerging from the building.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki hailed the “victory in Baghdad” yesterday and thanked the US military and its allies for “standing with us in defeating terrorism.”

“Today our forces are locked in battle against outlaws in Nineveh and we are chasing them,” he added, referring to the northwestern province where Iraqi officials say Al-Qaeda has regrouped. The Shiite leader has promised a “decisive battle” there, although US commanders have said it will be a more protracted fight.

The Bush administration launched its so-called surge to clear Baghdad and surrounding areas on Feb. 14, 2007, with the 82nd Airborne as the vanguard of an American troop buildup that would climb to 30,000 extra US soldiers by the summer.

After a sharp initial spike in military and civilian casualties, violence has declined sharply, particularly in Baghdad, although US military commanders have been cautious in describing the successes, stressing that Al-Qaeda remains a serious threat.

“We should keep our hands on our weapons to maintain the victories,” Al-Maliki said yesterday in remarks broadcast on Iraqi state TV. “Therefore we shouldn’t lose focus or the enemy might regroup.”

The US military, meanwhile, faced new complaints from Iraqis that civilians and US-allied fighters were killed at the hands of American forces in raids to the north and south of the capital.

A senior aide to Iraq’s senior Shiite spiritual leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Al-Sistani said the government should “be careful” as it negotiates a long-term security agreement with the Americans that is aimed at replacing the current UN mandate for foreign troops in Iraq.

“The agreement ... should secure the interests of the Iraqi people and not the opposite because the coming generations will be committed to it,” Sheikh Abdul-Mahdi Al-Karbalaie said during Friday prayers in Karbala.

Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari has said the first round of talks on the agreement would begin on Feb. 27, although the US Embassy in Baghdad said no date has been confirmed.

David Satterfield, senior adviser to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, insisted negotiators would not seek a permanent presence in Iraq. “We are not asking for, we are not seeking, permanent basing in Iraq,” Satterfield told reporters in Paris. “We very much believe that Iran wishes to see the forced departure of foreign forces — particularly US forces — in the most humiliating and devastating manner possible,” he said, adding that trademark Shiite militia bombings and rocket and mortar attacks “are not only continuing, they have significantly increased over the past six weeks.” He singled out attacks on US and British bases in the oil-rich southern Iraq, particularly the city of Basra, where Shiite militias are engaged in a violent power struggle.

“How do you expect the government of Iraq or the government of the United States to deal with a country which is murdering our people, which is engaged in terrorist activity around the region,” he said.

His comments came as US officials have sharpened their rhetoric against Iran in recent weeks.