Iraq to Assume Responsibility for Anbar Province
Fallujah, Ramadi to be Controlled by Baghdad
Aug 28, 2008
Plans are in the works for Marine forces to be freed up from control of Iraq’s Anbar Province, once considered the most violent region in Iraq and a lost cause by many Iraq analysts.
Slow But Steady Progress
Since violence in Anbar reached its peak a few years ago, there has been slow but steady progress in the effort to bring the insurgent threat under control. It began with Iraq’s Sunnis, who are the primary inhabitants of Anbar Province, turning against al Qaeda’s foreign fighters after increasingly brutal tactics were used to establish an al Qaeda foothold in the region.
The U.S. Army originally had responsibility for Anbar, but gradually gave way to Marine control as Army units were shifted to other critical parts of Iraq. While U.S. forces battled Sunni insurgents and al Qaeda fighters, the Anbar Awakening began to take hold, with Sunnis rebelling against al Qaeda and forming groups of “concerned local citizens,” or what is widely known as the “Sons of Iraq.”
Anbar Province was once considered "lost" by many military analysts, inside and outside the Pentagon. The region consists of large swathes of desert, with few populated regions along the Euphrates River. The region borders Syria, which has long been suspected of allowing foreign fighters from al Qaeda to infiltrate across the shared Iraq-Syria border. Al Qaeda is suspected of conducting the most high profile and most casualty producing attacks in Iraq.
Iraq Taking Control
As the training of Iraqi forces has continued to produce more competent indigenous units, the requirement for U.S. forces in the province has diminished. Currently, there are more than 20,000 U.S. Marines in Anbar, which features notable battlegrounds of the Iraq war such as Fallujah and Ramadi.
Ramadi was home to the storied U.S. 82nd Airborne Division early in the war, and during some of the worst times insurgents freely wandered the streets of the provincial capital. Fallujah first came to the attention of the war’s observers when four U.S. contractors were ambushed, killed, and hung from a bridge on the edge of the city. That attack led to an all-out assault by U.S. military forces in late 2004.
Relieving Stress on the U.S. Military
As more Iraqi units reach levels of competency that allow them to take over security responsibilities from U.S. forces, the burdens on an overstretched American military begin to ease. Any relief that is provided, though, is likely to be short-lived as the demand for additional troops in Afghanistan continues to rise.
There, the Taliban has made significant strides of late and NATO member countries are becoming increasingly worried that Afghanistan is sliding out of control. Afghanistan is viewed by many as the central front in the global war on terrorism, and calls for troop increases to aid NATO and the government of Hamid Karzai are increasing.
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