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The U.S. military handed over security control of Iraq’s largest Sunni province, Anbar — a former bastion of both Sunni nationalist and jihadist militants — to Iraqi forces Sept. 1. Only a handful of the nearly 40 leaders of the Sunni tribal militia known as the Awakening Council attended the official ceremony, which was held under tight security in the provincial capital of Ar Ramadi. (The Awakening Council, which is on the U.S. payroll, played a key role in 2007 in getting Sunni nationalist militants fighting U.S. troops to turn their guns against al Qaeda-led jihadists.)
Some American troops will remain in the province to train Iraqi army and police personnel and as a standby force in the event of any fresh surge in violence.
The western province of Anbar is Iraq’s largest province, stretching from Baghdad to the Syrian, Jordanian, and Saudi borders. It is the 11th province to be transferred to Iraqi governmental control. Three Kurdish provinces in the north — Dohuk, Arbil and Sulaymaniyah, which together form the autonomous federal Kurdistan region — and seven Shia-majority provinces in the south (Karbala, An Najaf, Muthanna, Dhi Qar, Al Qadisiyah, Maysin and Basra) have already come under Iraqi control. The transfer of Kurdish provinces was quick and smooth given their special status, while Baghdad was able to impose its writ on the Shiite provinces with some difficulty owing to intra-Shiite factional struggles.
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