Few troops to stay in Iraq cities after June 30

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Only a small number of U.S. troops will be left in Iraqi cities after a June 30 deadline for combat forces to leave urban areas but the exact number is still being worked on, a U.S. spokesman said on Wednesday.

This month's pullback by U.S. combat forces into their bases is part of an agreement between the United States and Iraq which sets the end of 2011 as the date for a full U.S. withdrawal from the country former President George W. Bush invaded in 2003.

Some U.S. soldiers will remain behind in so-called Joint Security Stations to train and advise Iraqi security forces, and the U.S. military will also continue to provide intelligence, and air support, and be on call if needed.

Their numbers have not been clarified, amid concerns that Iraq's newly minted police and soldiers will not be up to the task of defending the population from the car and suicide bombings that still occur regularly.

"I can't give you a rough estimate," Brigadier General Steve Lanza, spokesman for the U.S. military in Iraq, told reporters when asked repeatedly to state how many U.S. soldiers would remain in city centers after June 30 and where.

"Actually, with the amount of combat soldiers we have here, the amount of forces remaining in the cities for stability operations will be extremely small," he said.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has called the U.S. departure from Iraqi cities a great victory for Iraq as it consolidates its sovereignty. The cabinet has declared a national holiday to mark the occasion.

The government has also warned that Sunni Islamist al Qaeda and other violent groups were likely to try to take advantage of the U.S. pullback to launch more attacks.

The sectarian warfare and insurgency triggered by the U.S. invasion have receded dramatically in the past year, but devastating bomb attacks remain common. More than 70 people were killed when a truck bomb detonated outside a mosque near the northern city of Kirkuk on Saturday.

Lanza said the U.S. military acknowledged the pullback of its forces would pose challenges for Iraq. But he added that June had only seen 10 high-profile attacks, against 16 in May and 28 in April.

He also stressed that the U.S. withdrawal from city centers had been occurring since January -- 151 former U.S. bases had already been handed over to Iraqi forces.

"On 1 July we're not going to see this big black puff of smoke as everybody leaves the cities," he said.

(Reporting by Michael Christie; editing by Philippa Fletcher)