RAMADI, Iraq (AFP) — The US military will next week hand over to Iraqi forces security control of Anbar, a Sunni Arab province where some of the war's bloodiest battles have been fought, the provincial police chief said on Thursday.
"September 1 is the official date for the transfer of the security file of Anbar from US forces to the Iraqi military command," Tareq al-Dulaimi told AFP.
"We've been ready for several months, and our forces are completely ready to take over responsibility."
It will be the first mainly Sunni Arab province where security control is being handed over from US to Iraqi forces.
The announcement came after US Marine General James Conway said on Wednesday that Iraqi security forces were now ready to take over responsibility for the province -- Iraq's largest and a former bastion of Sunni Arab insurgents.
"The change in the Al-Anbar province is real and perceptible," Conway said in Washington.
Anbar will be the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces to be handed over by the US-led coalition, which currently has 28,000 soldiers there, down from 37,000 in February, according to US army figures.
The number of Iraqi soldiers and police in Anbar has grown to 37,000 from just 5,000 three years ago.
Of the 10 provinces already handed over, three are Kurdish and seven Shiite.
The once-restive province west of Baghdad is home to the former flashpoint cities of Ramadi and Fallujah, where deadly clashes between insurgents and US troops flared repeatedly after the invasion.
Since the 2003 US-led invasion, 1,305 American soldiers or a third of all US casualties occured in Anbar, according to independent website icasualties.org.
Much of the success in restoring stability to the province is down to Sunni tribesmen and former rebels who in late 2006 formed groups called "Sahwa" or Awakening Councils to fight Al-Qaeda jihadists.
Within a year, they made the province one of the safest in Iraq and the provincial Sunni sheikhs have long spearheaded moves to take charge of security.
The American military had planned to transfer control in Anbar on June 28 but cancelled the previous day -- citing a sandstorm as the reason.
Local chiefs said the delay was due to Sunni political infighting between Sahwa and the leading Sunni political group Islamic Party.
Sheikh Ali al-Hatem, Anbar's Sahwa chief, was critical, saying the handover was premature.
"We asked the Iraqi government to do the handover after the provincial election, so we are surprised by this decision," said Hatem.
"There are dangers in Anbar, some police stations are infiltrated by officers who are working in terrorist organisation, so we need more time and greater stability for a handover."
Although Anbar is considered relatively safe, 30 people were killed in a suicide bombing on Monday at a banquet attended by police and Awakening Council members in Al-Zaidan, in the east of the province just outside Baghdad.
The drop in violence in Iraq comes amid growing pressure to beef up the US troop presence in Afghanistan, where the level of violence is higher.
About 144,000 US soldiers are currently on the ground in Iraq, but those numbers could decrease in coming months.
General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq, has said he will decide in the coming days or weeks whether to continue withdrawing troops, and at what pace.
Iraqi officials said this week that Washington and Baghdad have agreed there will be no foreign forces in Iraq after 2011, setting a timeline for a US withdrawal.
Under the 27-point deal, American combat troops would be pulled out of Iraqi cities by next June ahead of a full withdrawal by 2011, although Washington insists that no agreement has been finalised.
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