BAGHDAD — Rocket and mortar attacks in Iraq have decreased to their lowest levels in more than 21 months, the U.S. military said today.

Last month saw 369 "indirect fire" attacks — the lowest number since February 2006. October's total was half of what it was in the same month a year ago. And it marked the third month in a row of sharply reduced insurgent activity, the military said.

The U.S. command issued the tallies a day after Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said suicide attacks and other bombings in Baghdad also have dropped dramatically, calling it an end of sectarian violence.

In the capital, an Iraqi taxi driver was shot dead by a private security guard protecting a convoy driving through the city, Iraqi police said Monday. Afterward, police searched the man's taxi and found no weapons nor any other evidence of suspicious activity, said a police officer from the nearest station, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information.

The convoy did not stop for the investigation, the officer said.

Total rocket and mortar attacks rose steadily from 808 in January 2007 to a peak of 1,032 in June, before falling over the next four months, a U.S. military statement said today. That decline also was seen in Baghdad, where such attacks rose from 139 in January to 224 in June, and then fell to only 53 attacks in October, it said.

The Iraqi spokesman for a U.S.-Iraqi push to pacify the capital said the decline in violence would allow the government to reopen 10 roads later this month.

"This will help reduce traffic jams and citizens will feel life returning to normal," Brig. Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi told Iraqi state television.

"We are all realizing now that what Baghdad was seeing every day — dead bodies in the streets and morgues — is ebbing remarkably," al-Maliki told reporters Sunday at his office in the U.S.-guarded Green Zone.

"This is an indication that sectarianism intended as a gate of evil and fire in Iraq is now closed," he said.

Associated Press figures show a sharp drop in the number of U.S. and Iraqi deaths across the country in the past few months. The number of Iraqis who met violent deaths dropped from at least 1,023 in September to at least 905 in October, according to an AP count.

The number of American military deaths fell from 65 to at least 39 over the same period.

Before the arrival of nearly 30,000 U.S. reinforcements this past spring, explosions shook Baghdad daily — sometimes hourly. Mortar and rocket fire were frequent as was the rhythm of gunfire.

Now the sounds of warfare are rare. American troops have set up small outposts in some of the capital's most dangerous enclaves.