THE US military handed over Anbar province to Iraqi security forces yesterday, less than two years after it almost lost it to a Sunni Arab insurgency.
"We are in the last ten yards of this terrible fight. The goal is very near," Major-General John Kelly, commander of American forces in Anbar, told US, Iraqi and tribal officials at a ceremony in the provincial capital, Ramad, to mark the event.
"Your lives and the lives of your children depend on victory."
Maj-Gen Kelly and Anbar's governor, Mamun Sami Rasheed, embraced after signing a document making Anbar the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces, and the first Sunni Arab one, to be returned to Iraqi control since the US-led invasion.
Police marched down a main street carrying Iraqi flags, followed by a parade of vehicles trimmed with flowers.
The US president, George Bush, praised the people of Anbar, scene of more than a quarter of US combat deaths in Iraq since 2003, for turning against al-Qaeda's Sunni Islam militants. "Today, Anbar is no longer lost to al-Qaeda – it is al-Qaeda that lost Anbar," he said.
Much of Anbar was once in the grip of al-Qaeda. The region witnessed fierce battles against US forces and Iraq's Shiite-led government.
Some of the bloodiest fights of the conflict have taken place there, including two devastating assaults by US forces on the city of Fallujah in 2004.
"We would not have even imagined this in our wildest dreams three or four years ago," Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie said before the ceremony.
"If we had said that we were going to hand over security responsibility from the foreign troops to civilian authority, people would laugh at us. Now I think it's a reality."
The handover in Anbar had been pencilled in for June, but was delayed because of a row between local political leaders.
The handover was largely ceremonial because Iraqi forces have been working independently for several months.
Things changed in Anbar in late 2006, when Sunni tribal leaders, fed up with al-Qaeda's harsh tactics and puritanical brand of Islam, switched sides, helping the US military to largely expel the group from the region. The movement against al-Qaeda was known as Anbar's "Awakening".
Still, tensions simmer in Anbar among Awakening leaders, Iraqi government forces and local councillors led by the Islamic Party. Some Awakening fighters complain their members are not being incorporated into Iraqi security forces.
The changes in Anbar became a model for grassroots guard units across the country, which US officials credit with helping sharply to reduce violence across Iraq. Some 382 Iraqi civilians were killed in August, Iraqi government figures showed, far below the more than 1,770 killed in August 2007.
Violence against US troops has also dropped in the past year. Eleven US soldiers were killed in combat in Iraq in August. In August 2007, 56 US troops and four British soldiers were killed in combat.
But attacks continue in restive areas as prime minister Nuri al-Maliki, emboldened after success in battling Shiite militias this spring, presses the US in bilateral talks for assurances on gradually limiting the US troop presence.
Baghdad and Washington say they are close to agreement on a new security pact that will govern the presence of US forces in Iraq after a United Nations mandate expires at year's end.
BACKGROUNDFOR years, Anbar was the centre stage of the Sunni insurgency. The city of Fallujah became the symbol of resistance until it fell to US troops in November 2004 in the most intense urban combat of the war.
The province was the base of al-Qaeda in Iraq and its leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who used the area as a staging ground for attacks in Baghdad until he was killed.
The return of security control to Iraqi authorities does not mean that an estimated 25,000 US troops in the region will leave Anbar. But the US military will cut back on security patrols and focus on training Iraq's army and police.
The full article contains 686 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
