Baghdad - An Iraqi lawmaker close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki in remarks published Sunday said that only 50,000 US soldiers would remain in Iraq by the middle of next year.

Hassan al-Sanid, a member of parliament's Security and Defence Committee, said he expected that the number of US soldiers in the country would drop by almost two thirds by mid-2010, according to al- Sabah newspaper.

"Iraqi forces can handle the security file much better than US troops can. Iraqi cities will be more secure than they were when US soldiers were responsible for security," al-Sanid said.

Currently there are roughly 130,000 US soldiers in Iraq. They are scheduled to stop leading combat operations by September, and to withdraw from the country completely by the end of 2011.

Al-Maliki has said he expects the United States to stick to that deadline. But last month, the prime minister hinted that he might ask US forces to stay in the country past that deadline. "If the Iraqis require further training and support we shall examine this at that time, based on the needs of Iraq," he said.

Sectarian violence between Sunni and Shiite Muslims has increased in recent weeks.

At least 51 people were killed in a wave of bombings targeting Shiites in the capital Baghdad and the northern city of Mosul on Friday.

The previous week, five consecutive bombings targeted mosques associated with Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's movement, killing 30 people and injured 100.

A series of bombings targeting Sunnis followed, including two car bomb attacks in the western Sunni heartland, al-Anbar province, that killed at least nine people and injured at least 27.(dpa)