US military returns control of Anbar to Iraqis

THE US military handed over control of the once brutally violent Anbar province to Iraqi forces yesterday, marking a major milestone in America’s plan eventually to send its troops home.

But American officials warned that the struggle against al-Qaida in Iraq and other insurgents was not over in the western region that was the scene of some of the bloodiest battles since the 2003 invasion.

“This war is not quite over, but it’s being won and primarily by the people of Anbar. Al-Qaida has not been entirely defeated in Anbar, but their end is near and they know it,” said Marine Maj Gen John Kelly, top American commander in Anbar, during the handover ceremony.

The return of security control to Iraqi authorities doesn’t mean US troops, which number about 25,000 in the region, will leave Anbar, a vast, mostly desert area that extends from the western outskirts of Baghdad to the borders of Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. However, US troops will cut back on security patrols and focus on training Iraq’s army and police.

For years Anbar, the 11th of 18 provinces to switch to Iraqi control, was centre stage of the Sunni insurgency and scene of some of the bloodiest battles of the war.

The Anbar city of Fallujah became the symbol of Sunni resistance until it fell to American troops in November 2004 in the most intense urban combat of the war.

The province was the base of the shadowy al-Qaida 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 in a 2006 American airstrike.

Disaffected Sunni sheiks organised awakening councils that joined forces with the Americans to push al-Qaida from the province. That enabled US forces to gain control of the provincial capital of Ramadi and other cities long considered killing zones for Americans.

Also yesterday, a senior aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the Iraqis have submitted a list of proposals to tweak a draft of a US-Iraqi security agreement. The changes were submitted to the US government in Baghdad.

US and Iraqi officials have said the two sides agreed tentatively to a schedule that included a broad pullout of American forces by the end of 2011.