The SAS has helped to defeat a murderous web of al-Qaeda car bombers in Baghdad that brought devastation to the capital, the top US commander in Iraq said yesterday as he heaped praise on the unit’s efforts.

General David Petraeus, who is due to leave his post in Iraq shortly, also dismissed the notion that American and British military relations had been strained by the recent offensive in Basra, emphasising that the problem of tackling militias in the southern port city had been rightfully Iraqi-led.

The four-star general, looking ahead to his next posting in charge of Central Command, said he would draw on lessons learnt from his four years in Iraq on how to fight an insurgency when tackling his new area of responsibility, which includes Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and Lebanon.

He said that Britain’s special forces in Iraq worked alongside their American counterparts on “many, many cases of very important operations.

“They have helped immensely in the Baghdad area, in particular, to take down the al-Qaeda car bomb networks and other al-Qaeda operations in Iraq’s capital city, so they have done a phenomenal job in that regard,” he told The Times in an interview at his office in Baghdad’s fortified green zone.

On one occasion, SAS troops rented a pink pickup truck, stripped off their body armour to blend in better with the local population, jumped behind the wheel and drove through the traffic to catch a key target.

“It was brilliant, actually,” General Petraeus said. “Who dares wins,” he said, quoting the SAS motto. “They have exceptional initiative, exceptional skill, exceptional courage and, I think, exceptional savvy. I can’t say enough about how impressive they are in thinking on their feet.”

The SAS has had at least two squadrons in Baghdad, operating alongside their American counterpart, Delta Force, and other elements of the American special forces.

Their principal role is to track down al-Qaeda, still seen as the biggest threat to stability in Iraq, and catch would-be suicide bombers.

They are also engaged in hunting for hostages, including the five Britons who were seized from a Finance Ministry building in Baghdad in May last year.

One SAS soldier, named at an inquest as Nicholas Brown, 34, was killed in a firefight in Baghdad with Shia fighters in March. He is understood to have been part of a snatch squad sent to arrest a senior militia commander that ran into an ambush.

About ten members of British special forces have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion.

Turning to Basra, General Petraeus said that the situation leading up to the operation on March 25 launched by Nouri al-Maliki, the Prime Minister, to reclaim Iraq’s second city from Iranian-backed militias, was very complex, with many rival Iraqi political interests involved.

“There were Iraqi accommodations in Basra, there were coalition accommodations in Basra, there were deals,” he said.

“I was very upfront about that, in fact, when I came through London on the way home from Congress in September and noted that that’s how you end these kinds of endeavours. Sometimes the deals work out well and sometimes they don’t, and when they don’t, then you have to go back and rectify the situation.”

Asked what he made of the deals that were cut in Basra, General Petraeus said that the Iraqi authorities, including General Mohan al-Furaiji, the head of security in the province at the time, had been fully supportive of them as well as being the driving force behind some.

The General said that the Iraqi Government pushed strongly for the British Forces to hand control of Basra to the Iraqi authorities, something that happened in December, three months after British soldiers pulled out of the city completely and moved back to their airport base several miles away.

However, he said, conditions in Basra had become ugly. “There is no question that the militia, criminality and violence in Basra had reached intolerable levels. That’s why Prime Minister Maliki ordered the operation there,” he said.

The Prime Minister launched the Operation Charge of the Knights assault three or four months sooner than had initially been expected, a move that revealed the Iraqi forces in Basra were not ready to take on al-Mahdi Army and the other militia elements that had effective control of the city. In the first few days of the Basra offensive about 3,000 members of the security forces fled.

“The early days there were dicey, there is no question about it, and it was an urban combat zone. It was a fight,” General Petraeus said.

He said that the decision by Brigadier Julian Free, the acting commander of the British military, to deploy small teams of military advisers with the 14th Iraqi Army division – something that happened six days into the offensive – along with the arrival of all the thousands of Iraqi reinforcements, backed by American combat power, helped to turn the situation around. He denied that the Basra experience had damaged the relationship between the American and British militaries, something that some British and American officers have claimed.

General Petraeus said that he had spoken to senior British leaders, including Gordon Brown and Des Browne, the Defence Secretary, “and once again I have reiterated the importance that we put on the British contribution”.

General Petraeus, who is credited with helping to reduce violence in Iraq to its lowest level in more than 4½ years by bringing in 30,000 extra troops in 2007 and encouraging former Sunni insurgents to turn against al-Qaeda, is due to leave the country next month to begin his new job as head of the US Central Command, based in Tampa, Florida.

As the man responsible for the Middle East, East Africa and Central Asia, he will still oversee military strategy in Iraq, while also taking on other troublespots.

As part of the transition process, he has travelled around the region over the past six months, including visits to Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Bahrain, Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, offering information on the situation in Iraq and also establishing new relations with a view to his future role.

In a signal that Tehran will be on his radar, General Petraeus said: “Everyone is watching and waiting right now to see if, in fact, Iran is going to continue to, together with help from Lebanese Hezbollah . . . train, equip and fund organisations that are a destabilising force in Iraq.” For now, the activities of Iranian-backed groups have dropped after operations in Basra and other Shia strongholds forced many militia leaders to escape to Iran, Lebanon and Syria, he said.

General Petraeus will also be focusing on Afghanistan. However, the General said that an important lesson he had learnt from Iraq was that every situation was unique. “Every situation has its own context, its own circumstances, and the key, of course, is an accurate and nuanced understanding of the conditions of the situation and the crafting of an approach that is appropriate for that context,” he said.

“We have to work with our colleagues, our partners in Pakistan as well as those in Afghanistan in trying to graft a comprehensive approach for the entire region or that sub-region.”

The general refused to be drawn on plans to reduce further the number of troops in Iraq, a contentious subject that has featured highly in the US presidential campaign, with the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, advocating a speedier withdrawal of troops than his Republican rival, John McCain.

He is due to present his opinion on the future shape of American operations in Iraq soon. He said: “We are very actively analysing the situation and our various options.”

The general said that he had spoken to both presidential hopefuls about Iraq.

“We think that both candidates, having seen Iraq recently, have seen the progress that has been made, are aware of the both the steps forward and the additional steps that need to be taken,” he said.

As he prepares to leave, General Petraeus feels that the security gains made on his watch are less fragile than at the start of the year. “But again I would still be cautious of my assessment.”

The commander also noted progress on the political and economic front, encouraging other countries to engage with Baghdad: “Iraq is really open for business now.”

General Petraeus is due to be replaced in Baghdad in the middle of September by Lieutenant-General Raymond Odierno, who was formerly his No 2 in the Iraq conflict.

Arms and the man

— Born to Dutch-American parents in Cornwall-on-Hudson, New York, on November 7, 1952

— Commissioned as a second lieutenant in the infantry after graduating from the US military academy at West Point in 1974

— Spent two years at Princeton University, where his doctorate thesis tackled the lessons of the Vietnam War. His views differed sharply from those of the military brass nearest to President Bush during the Iraq invasion

— Nearly died in 1991 when a soldier tripped and fired a live round into his chest. He is reputed to have promoted his assailant to Ranger School, the US Army’s most prestigious combat leadership course

— Served as chief operations officer for the United Nations mission to help to establish democracy in Haiti

— Led the 101st Airborne Division into battle during the invasion of Iraq, then assumed responsibility for the northern city of Mosul

— His second tour in 2004 involved overseeing the training of Iraqi security forces. After that he spent 15 months writing the army’s manual on counter-insurgency

— Arrived in Baghdad in 2007 after President Bush appointed him head of multinational forces in Iraq. Elevated to full army general, he sought to reduce violence with a surge of 30,000 extra US troops

— In July 2008 confirmed by Senate as the next head of US Central Command, which is responsible for all military operations from the Horn of Africa to the Middle East and Central Asia

Sources: Times database; Encyclopaedia Britannica

Petraeus in quotes

On the SAS “Who dares wins and they have exceptional initiative, exceptional skill, exceptional courage and I think just exceptional savvy. I can’t say enough about them actually, about how impressive they are in just thinking on their feet” “We have had many many cases of very important operations, they have helped immensely in the Baghdad area in particular to take down the al-Qaeda car bomb networks and other al-Qaeda operations in Iraq’s capital city so they have done a phenomenal job in that regard”

On the British deal with Shia militias in Basra “There were Iraqi accommodations in Basra, there were coalition accommodations in Basra, there were deals. I was very up front about that, in fact when I came through London on the way home from Congress in September and noted that, that’s how you end these kinds of endeavours. Sometimes the deals work out well and sometimes they don’t and when they don’t then you have to go back and rectify the situation”

On US troop withdrawals from Iraq “It is an opinion that is still being formulated. We are very actively analysing the situation and our various options. We are working that pretty intensively. [We] have been reviewing options for several months: assessing what the best options are and trying to refine a recommendation to make at an appropriate moment”

On how he will adapt lessons from Iraq for Afghanistan “The biggest lesson that we’ve all relearnt – and I think we relearn it periodically – is that every situation is unique. Every situation has its own context, its own circumstances and the key, of course, is an accurate and nuanced understanding of the conditions of the situation and then the crafting of an approach that is appropriate for that context. Within Iraq, for example, what works in Ramadi may not work in Baquba. You have to constantly assess and learn and adapt. That approach first of all has to inform what we are doing in Afghanistan”

On the US presidential candidates “We think that both candidates have seen Iraq recently, have seen the progress that has been made, are aware of the steps forward and the additional steps that need to be taken”

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