US cedes control of Anbar security to Baghdad

IRAQ:IN A formal ceremony in Ramadi yesterday, the US handed over security for Anbar, Iraq's largest province, to the Baghdad government.

The timing of the transfer is significant as it took place on the first day of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, a traditional period of truce and reconciliation.

While the US hailed the transfer as a milestone in the campaign to stabilise Iraq, at least 28,000 US troops will remain in Anbar and their withdrawal is expected to be staged. This means that the US military retains a significant presence and key role in Anbar, which has a population of 2 million, 95 per cent Sunni. The handover means that operations by regular US units have to be approved by the Iraqi defence ministry, while special forces have full freedom of action.

The number of Iraqi troops and police in Anbar, the heartland of the Sunni insurgency, stands at 37,000. But there are serious doubts that the Shia-dominated government and armed forces can work with US-armed and financed Sunni tribal "Awakening Councils" which were responsible for ousting al-Qaeda from Anbar.

Fearing clashes between government forces and "Awakening Council" fighters, the US postponed the transfer three times. But Washington came under strong pressure from Anbar residents to effect the handover, particularly since the province is said to have become one of the least violent in the country.

Thanks to the co-operation between the US military and the tribesmen, attacks on US and Iraqi forces in Anbar, which once accounted for a quarter of US fatalities, fell to eight to 10 a week.

Although the government is set to begin paying the salaries of the 55,000 "Awakening Council" members in Baghdad next month as a first step towards assuming responsibility for funding the entire movement, prime minister Nuri al-Maliki said recently that all militias would have to be disarmed and dissolved, challenging the arrangement made by the US military with the Sunni tribesmen.

Although he pledged to recruit 20 per cent of the 100,000 "Awakening Council" members into Iraq's security forces and civil administration, Mr Maliki has refused to honour this commitment.

"Awakening Council" chiefs, who have formed their own political groupings, complain that government reconstruction funds are not flowing into Anbar and reject the leadership of the Iraqi Islamic Party, which has 44 seats in parliament and several ministers in the government. The party fears that the councils will be successful in projected provincial and parliamentary elections.

Anbar is the eighth province out of 18 to be transferred to Baghdad's security control; the three northern Kurdish provinces have always been under Kurdish peshmerga militia.