Special report: Tension escalates in Iraq

    BAGHDAD, Aug. 29 (Xinhua) -- U.S. troops will soon handover the security file of Iraq's western province of Anbar to the Iraqi security forces, making it the eleventh Iraqi province retrieved from the control of U.S. troops, a spokesman of Multi-National Force (MNF) in the province said on Friday.

    "The U.S.-led Multi-National Force will handover the security dossier of Anbar province to the Iraqi security forces on next Sunday or Monday," Mahir al-Iraqi told Xinhua without providing more details.

    On Thursday, there were news reported that U.S. troops will handover on Sep. 1 the control of Sunni-dominated province which was once the heartland of a three-year-old insurgency.

    In June, a local police officer said that the Iraqi troops were set to take over the security of Anbar in late June or at the beginning of July, but the U.S. military asked to put it off due to bad weather, including sandstorms, in the province at that time that prevented U.S. and Iraqi officials from flying to the venue.

    Anbar would be the eleventh of Iraq's 18 provinces to return to the control of Iraqi security forces. It would also be the first Sunni-dominated province to be handed over by the coalition forces.

    Anbar, the country's largest province, expanding from Baghdad all the way west to the borders with Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, has been relatively calm since more than a year and a half ago after Sunni tribes and anti-U.S. insurgent groups turn up against al-Qaida in Iraq network, cooperating with the U.S. troops and Iraqi security forces.

    Rifts emerged between predominantly Sunni insurgent groups and the al-Qaida network after the latter adopted hardline and exercised indiscriminate killings against both Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

    The other ten Iraqi provinces handed over by U.S. forces to date are Qadisiyah, Maysan, Muthanna, Basra, Dhi Qar, Najaf, Karbala, and the three Kurdish provinces of Duhuk, Sulaimaniyah and Arbil.