The security control of Wasit province was turned over to the Iraqis which makes it the 13th of Iraq's 18 provinces to be handed over to Iraq in what formerly was the most violence-plagued areas of the country. Wasit has a 200-kilometre (125-mile) border with Iran and Iran has regularly smuggled weapons into Iraq for attacks against Coalition troops.
Shortly the northern oil-rich but ethnically volatile region of Kirkuk and of Salaheddin, the Sunni home province of executed dictator Saddam Hussein, will also revert to Iraqi security control.
The U.S. military remains in Baghdad, Nineveh, and Diyala.