As Al-Anbar is passed over to the Shia coalition in government in Iraq, thoughts turn to the prospects of future stability, writes Saif Nasrawi In an event touted by Iraqi officials as a clear sign of Baghdad's progress in building up a professional security apparatus, the US military handed over control of Al-Anbar Province to Iraqi forces Monday, marking a turning point relative to the presence of American troops in the war-torn country. The US army will also begin handing over control to the Iraqi government in October of largely Sunni paramilitary units credited with helping contain bloodshed across Iraq. These developments come amidst ongoing disputes among Iraq's Shia and Kurdish political factions about the presence of Kurdish forces -- the Peshmerga -- in the ethnically hybrid Diyala province, signalling what could emerge as a deep rift between Iraq's hitherto strident allies. Put together, these developments will determine whether the improvement in security conditions and the reduction of ethno-sectarian violence realised due to the US "surge" strategy can be sustained. During the security transfer ceremony at the governorate building in Al-Anbar's capital, Ramadi, Iraq's National Security Advisor Muwaffaq Al-Rubaie triumphantly declared that the handover of the first Sunni province and the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces to the Shia-led government was an "evident indicator of the advancement of Iraq's security capabilities". "The more training and equipment we [Iraqi forces] receive, the less our dependence on allied forces will be," he added. US President George W Bush said the transfer of Al-Anbar was a defeat for Al-Qaeda. "Today, Al-Anbar is no longer lost to Al-Qaeda -- it is Al-Qaeda that lost Al-Anbar," he said in a statement. "Al-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 Al-Anbar who worked alongside them," Bush added. 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 Al-Anbar. "The provincial and military leadership in Al-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, however, that 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. Despite the rejoicing US and Iraqi tone about the handover, one prominent Iraqi tribal leader of the "Awakening Councils" warned that Al-Anbar "could be turned into another battlefield of sectarian forces". Addressing the Ramadi ceremony, Sheikh Ahmed Abu Reesha, the leader of the Awakening Councils of Al-Anbar, criticised the Iraqi government for opposing the recruitment of some of its members in the current Iraqi security forces on the pretext that they are former Baathists. "We welcomed the government's national reconciliation programme, but we were surprised that the government prepared a list of ex-Iraqi army officers and members of the Baath Party that it wants to dismiss, neglecting their heroic sacrifices during the fight against Al-Qaeda," he said. The reduction of violence in Sunni areas in general in Iraq, and Al-Anbar in particular, since February 2007 was largely attributed to the 103,000 US-financed Awakening Council fighters recruited -- some of them former insurgents. As of October, the Iraqi government will take over the payment of the 54,000 members of the neighbourhood units that operate checkpoints and patrol streets in and around Baghdad, US Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Kulmayer told reporters Sunday. It will mark the first major step in a delicate transition that US officials hope will ultimately see 20 per cent of the US-backed units incorporated into the Iraqi security forces. Awakening leaders, however, cast doubts on the incorporation plans. "We are not interested now in joining the [Iraqi] forces. Instead we will focus on comprehensively changing the circumstances in Al-Anbar by participating fully in the upcoming local elections," Hamid Al-Hayes, a senior member of the Anbar Awakening Council told Al-Ahram Weekly. He added that the Iraqi Islamic Party -- the main Sunni representative in Nuri Al-Maliki's government -- is trying to postpone local elections for fear of losing the provincial councils. During the handover in Ramadi, the head of the Al-Anbar Provincial Council and the leading member of the Islamic Party, Abdul-Salam Al-Ani, accused "tribal and political sides" of trying to stir up trouble. "We will not let them," he said. Al-Ani was likely reflecting his party's concern that they might lose their majority in the Sunni governorates' councils as the Awakenings are expected to win a landslide majority in local elections, capitalising on their strong tribal networks and their military achievements vis-à-vis Al-Qaeda fighters in Al-Anbar, Salahuddin and Mosul provinces. The provincial elections scheduled to take place across Iraq in October are expected to be postponed to next year due to Kurdish lawmakers' reservations over details regarding the disputed oil-rich city of Kirkuk. Last month, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, a Kurd, vetoed a draft local elections law that granted a 32 per cent equal representation in Kirkuk's governing bodies for Kurds, Arabs and Turkmen, while the remaining four per cent of the city's local councils would go to the Christian minority. The Kurds argued that both Sunni and Shia Arabs wanted to undermine their historic right to annex Kirkuk to Kurdistan. Meanwhile, the Iraqi government's tense relationship with minority Kurds seems far from being contained as Kurdish and Iraqi government forces contend over control of Khanaqin, an ethnically mixed town in Diyala province, 110 kilometres east of Baghdad. "The Iraqi army still wants to enter Khanaqin, and the [Kurdish] Peshmerga is present. Everyone is on edge," said Ibrahim Bajelani, a Kurd who heads the provincial council in restive Diyala province. "If the Iraqi army tries to enter without prior agreement, we can't be held responsible for the consequences," he added. Tensions in Diyala are mounting after most of the 2,000 Kurdish troops who have been patrolling ethnically mixed areas withdrew this week to the edge of the Kurds' largely autonomous northern region, under pressure from the central government. The Peshmerga has refused to pull out of Khanaqin, outside Kurdistan but home to Arabs and Kurds, near the Iranian border. Concurrently, a suicide bomber killed 28 people at a police recruitment centre in the nearby town of Jalawla a day after Peshmerga forces withdrew from the town at Baghdad's request. A Peshmerga commander said the attack showed the Iraqi government could not handle security in the area. Thousands of Kurds staged protests as the Iraqi army approached Khanaqin last week to try to replace the Peshmerga. Iraqi troops remain outside the town and no fighting has occurred, but tensions are high. Al-Maliki's government sees the Peshmerga's withdrawal from Diyala as essential to its strategy of giving its own forces, not other armed groups, responsibility for security. "The presence of Peshmerga in Diyala is just like the presence of an outlawed militia," Sami Al-Askari, a legislator in the ruling Shia alliance, who is close to Al-Maliki, was quoted as saying in the London- based daily Asharq Al-Awsat Sunday. Abbas Al-Bayati, a Shia lawmaker, went further Tuesday to suggest that the presence of Kurdish forces outside Kurdistan is "unconstitutional". According to Article 117 of the Iraqi constitution, "the Peshmerga can be only deployed in Kurdistan, namely the three Kurdish provinces of Duhok, Irbil and Suleimaniya," he told Radio Sawa. It seems, analysts suggest, that the Shia-led government, growing more confident about its force abilities, is eager to draw clear borderlines demarcating areas under their control with those under Sunni and Kurdish control. Independent Iraqi analysts argue that the Shia ruling coalition's ambition to establish a semi- autonomous body in central and southern Iraq might explain their recent tough positions vis-à- vis both Sunnis and Kurds. "Now with Barack Obama and Joe Biden running for the [US] presidency, the ruling Shia coalition has more hope of expanding its hegemony over Iraq," an Iraqi political analyst told the Weekly on condition of anonymity. Democratic presidential candidate Obama picked last week Senator Biden of Delaware to be his running mate. For Iraqis, Biden is infamous for his 2006 proposal for partitioning Iraq into three autonomous regions -- Sunni, Shia and Kurd-controlled.
