US hands over former Sunni rebel hotspot to Iraq

FLAG CARRYING: Iraqi security forces during the ceremony in Anbar's capital Ramadi, about 100km west of Baghdad. (AFP)

Iraqi forces on Monday took control of the Sunni Anbar province, once the most explosive battlefield in Iraq, from the US military, symbolising the growing security gains in the war-torn country.

The transfer ceremony at the governate building in the provincial capital of Ramadi marked the handover of the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces.

Anbar, once a flashpoint of anti-American insurgency and later an Al-Qaeda stronghold, is the first Sunni province to be returned to Baghdad's Shi'ite-led government.

"I would like to announce that the [Anbar] transfer from the US to Iraqi forces is done," said Muwaffaq Al-Rubaie, Iraq's national security advisor, at the handover ceremony.

US President George W. Bush said the transfer of Anbar was a defeat for Al-Qaeda.

"Today, Anbar is no longer lost to Al-Qaeda - it is Al-Qaeda that lost Anbar," he said in a statement.

"Anbar has been transformed and reclaimed by the Iraqi people. This achievement is a credit to the courage of our troops, the Iraqi security forces, and the brave tribes and other civilians from Anbar who worked alongside them," Bush added.

Police said tens of thousands of Iraqi and US troops were on alert for the handover across the vast desert province in western Iraq, home to some two million people.

US ambassador to Baghdad Ryan Crocker and the top commander of American forces, General David Petraeus, said Iraqi forces had already been operating independently for the past two months in Anbar.

"The provincial and military leadership in Anbar will have to work cooperatively in order to attain the sustainable security necessary for long-term economic prosperity," they said in a joint statement.

The US military said the transfer of security "does not necessarily mean that the security situation is stable or better."

"It means the government and the provincial authorities are ready to take the responsibility for handling it."

After the transfer, US forces are to withdraw to their bases and take part in military operations only if requested by the provincial governor.

Sunni Arabs in Anbar were the first to turn against US forces after the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime by US-led invasion forces in 2003, mounting a raging insurgency that tore through the world's most sophisticated military.

In the first years after the invasion, Iraq's biggest province became the theatre of a brutal war focused on the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, while a string of towns along the Euphrates valley became insurgent strongholds and later safe havens for Al-Qaeda.

Mamoon Sami Rashid, the governor of Anbar, said the security transfer was achieved after a "lot of sacrifices and shedding of blood."

"Al-Qaeda has committed some of the biggest massacres in this province. We have lost some big personalities," he said, singling out Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha, the Sunni sheikh who launched the first anti-Qaeda Sahwa [Awakening] group in Anbar and was killed a year ago in a car bomb attack.

Around one third of US fatalities, or 1,305 troops, have been in Anbar which borders Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria.

The brutal Al-Qaeda-led insurgency also killed around 6,000 civilians in the province, according to independent website Iraqbodycount.org.

The violence in Anbar began ebbing only after local Sunni Arab tribes - weary of Al-Qaeda's extreme brutality - revolted against the jihadists in September 2006 and sided with US forces.

Sunni tribes formed Sahwa groups and within a year the province became the safest in Iraq.

The US military currently has 28,000 soldiers in Anbar, down from 37,000 in February, according to US army figures, while the number of Iraqi soldiers and police has grown to 37,000 from just 5,000 three years ago.

Major General John Kelly, head of US marines in Anbar, said his forces had "no intention of leaving Anbar province," but added he had made recommendations to Petraeus that would be revealed in about two weeks.

About 144,000 US soldiers are currently deployed in Iraq, but those numbers could decrease in coming months.

Security officials, meanwhile, told newswire AFP that Iraq's death toll in August was down by around seven percent from the previous month with 431 people slain in insurgent and militia attacks across the country.

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