The US military today handed over Iraq's western Anbar province to Iraqi security forces today, less than two years after the region was all but lost to a Sunni Arab insurgency.
"We are in the last ten 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 at a ceremony near Anbar's government headquarters in Ramadi.
"Your lives and the lives of your children depend on victory."
Maj Gen Kelly and Anbar Governor Mamun Sami Rasheed embraced after signing a document making Anbar the 11th of Iraq's 18 provinces, and the first Sunni Arab province, to be returned to Iraqi control since the 2003 U.S.-led invasion to oust Saddam Hussein.
"We faced al-Qaeda and we paid dearly for this with our lives," Mr Rasheed said. "Blood is spread 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.
Lt Colonel Chris Hughes, spokesman for the US Marines in western Iraq said the handover was largely ceremonial since Iraqi forces had been operating independently for several months.
Anbar, with little oil wealth but strategic importance in its borders with Syria, Saudi Arabia and Jordan, was once a haven for Sunni Islamist al-Qaeda and the scene of fierce battles against US forces and Iraq's Shia-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 Falluja in 2004.
"We would not have even imagined this in our wildest dreams three or four years ago," Iraqi national security adviser Mowaffaq al-Rubaie told reporters before the ceremony. "If we had said that we were going to hand over security responsibility from the foreign troops to civilian authority, people would laugh at us. Now I think it's a reality."