Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdel Mahdi separately told reporters in Paris that his government was prepared to be flexible in the case of Mosul.

The US military and their Iraqi counterparts are conducting an assessment to determine what to do, said Colonel Gary Volesky, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division's 3rd Heavy Brigade Combat Team, in a video teleconference from Iraq.

"If the Iraqi government wants us to stay, we will stay," Volesky told reporters in a teleconference.

Mosul, an important regional center in northern Iraq with a mixed population of Kurds, Sunnis and Christians, has remained in the grip of insurgent violence even as unrest has subsided elsewhere in Iraq over the past year.

Five US troops and three Iraqi security force members were killed Friday in the suicide truck bombing of a Mosul police compound, the deadliest attack against US forces in over a year.

Under an agreement reached with the Iraqi government in November, US combat forces are supposed to withdraw from Iraqi cities by June 30, and from the whole country by the end of 2011.

"We are conducting an assessment right now with our Iraqi counterparts to determine what the way ahead is for the security in Mosul," Volesky said. "Based on that assessment a decision will be made on what we will do on 30th of June."

Ultimately, he said "I will let the Iraqis make that decision."

He added that he was "optimistic" that Iraq's security forces were making sufficient progress to eventually to take over fully from American forces.

But he also pointed to a worrisome and uptick in violence in recent days.

"There is an Al-Qaeda element left who we believe is tied to the suicide vehicle bombings and explosive devices" he said, as well as "a criminal element" responsible for the violence.

Meanwhile, speaking earlier Tuesday to reporters during a visit to Paris, the Iraqi vice president said that the agreed 2011 deadline for US forces to leave Iraq was "definitive" and would not be renegotiated.

But Abdel Mahdi added that there could be some flexibility on the June 30 date for them to leave major cities, including in the case of Mosul, where he admitted authorities had yet to completely regain control of the streets.

The US military regards Mosul as the last bastion of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, following its rout from Baghdad and western Iraq in 2007.

The Iraqi army launched a major offensive in Mosul in May 2008 but insurgent attacks have continued to take a toll.

General Raymond Odierno, the commander of US forces in Iraq, signaled over the weekend that the US military will seek flexibility in meeting deadlines for pulling troops out of the cities.

"If we believe that we'll need troops to maintain presence in some of the cities, we'll recommend that, but ultimately it's the decision of Prime Minister (Nuri al-) Maliki," Odierno said in an interview with CNN on Sunday.

Iraqi security forces, he said, "are proving every day that they are becoming more competent, so the decision will be made as how much of US forces are needed in order to continue to support them to keep the stability that we're starting to see here in Iraq."

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