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Ramadi, Iraq: The US military handed over Iraq's western Anbar province to Iraqi security forces on Monday - less than two years after the region was all but lost to insurgency.
"We are in the last 10 yards of this terrible fight. The goal is very near," Major General John Kelly, commander of US forces in Anbar, told US, Iraqi and tribal officials gathered near Anbar's government headquarters.
"Your lives and the lives of your children depend on [our] victory."
Kelly and Anbar Governor Mamun Sami Rashid embraced after signing a document, making Anbar the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces, and the first Sunni province, to be returned to Iraqi control since the 2003 US-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussain.
"We faced Al Qaida and we paid dearly for this [with] our lives," Rashid said. "Blood is spread all over this great land."
Police marched down a main street, carrying Iraqi flags, followed by a parade of police vehicles trimmed with flowers.
The handover in Anbar had been slated for June, but was delayed due to a row between local political leaders.
Largely ceremonial
Lt Colonel Chris Hughes, spokesman for US Marines in western Iraq, said the handover was largely ceremonial since Iraqi forces had been working independently for several months.
Anbar has little oil wealth. However, the area is strategically very important owing to its borders with Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
The region was once a haven for Al Qaida militants and the scene of fierce battles against US forces and Iraq's Shiite-led government.
Some of the bloodiest fights in more than five years of war have taken place in Anbar, including two devastating assaults by US forces on the city of Fallujah in 2004.
The first of those battles is believed to have killed hundreds of civilians, while the second assault left many parts of the city in ruins.
Key parts of Anbar were once in the grip of Al Qaida.
"We would not have even imagined this in our wildest dreams three or four years ago," Iraqi national security advisor Mowaffaq Al Rubaie told reporters before the ceremony.
"If we had said that we were going to hand over the security responsibility from the foreign troops to civilian authority, people would have laughed at us. Now I think it's a reality."
Things changed in Anbar in late 2006, when the Sunni tribal leaders of the area, fed up with Al Qaida's harsh tactics and puritanical brand of Islam, switched sides - helping the US military to largely expel the group from the region.
Anbar's "awakening" became a model for grassroots guard units across the country, which US officials credited with helping sharply reduce violence across Iraq.
Some 382 Iraqi civilians were killed in August, Iraqi government figures showed, far below the more than 1,770 killed in August 2007.
Violence against the US troops has also dropped over the last year. Eleven US soldiers were killed in combat in Iraq in August, according to independent web site www.icasualties.org - up from six in July.
In August 2007, 56 US personnel and four British soldiers were killed in armed skirmishes.
However, the attacks still continue in Baghdad and other restive areas.
Simmering tension
Tensions have simmered in Anbar in recent months, too, between the leaders of the 'awakening', Iraqi government forces and local councilors lead by the Islamic Party.
Some members of the 'awakening' group complain that their fighters are not being incorporated into the Iraqi security forces.
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