UK to hand control of last province to Iraq forces

BASRA, Iraq - Britain will transfer responsibility for security in Basra province to Iraqi forces on Sunday, effectively marking the end of nearly five years of British control of the southern part of Iraq.

The handover of Iraq's main oil export hub will be the biggest test yet of the Baghdad government's ability to maintain security without troops from the United States or its main ally.

With Iraq's second-largest city, only major port and nearly all its oil exports, Basra is far more populous, wealthier and more strategically located than any of the other eight of Iraq's 18 provinces previously placed under formal Iraqi control.

It has also often been more violent, though Iraqi forces say their 30,000 troops and police in the area can now keep peace.

"(This) marks an important milestone in Iraqis taking responsibility for their own destiny," Lieutenant-General Bill Rollo, the top British general in Iraq, told Reuters in Baghdad.

The mainly Shi'ite southern province has largely escaped the sectarian warfare that killed tens of thousands of people in central Iraq. But Basra has been the scene of bloody turf wars between rival Shi'ite factions, criminals and smugglers.

Basra's police accuse militants of imposing strict Islamic codes, killing women for so-called "honour crimes".

Yet Iraq's second-largest city is also a lively place, with restaurants open late and little of the barricaded neighbourhood siege mentality that permeates the capital Baghdad.

The factions agreed to a truce this month and killings are down. But a triple car bomb attack which killed about 40 people in neighbouring Maysan province last week served as a reminder of the potential for violence in areas vacated by the British.

A scaled-down British force will remain in southern Iraq confined to a single air base outside Basra, with a small training mission and a rapid reaction team on stand-by.

Britain now has 4,500 troops in Iraq, less than a tenth the force that then-Prime Minister Tony Blair dispatched to help topple Saddam Hussein in 2003. Blair's successor Gordon Brown has said the force will shrink to just 2,500 by mid-2008.

OIL WEALTH

Basra province exports more than 1.5 million barrels of oil per day, providing nearly all Iraq's government funds.

Some oil is also sold abroad outside official channels, providing an illicit income for smugglers, many of whom are believed to have links to the region's squabbling militias.

Political squabbling has split the city among three main factions. Loyalists of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr have wide influence on the streets, the rival Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council has clout in the security forces and the smaller Fadhila party controls the governorate.

Since the fall of Saddam, Britain maintained control of four southern provinces, backed up by large contingents of Italians, Australians, Japanese and others -- most now long since gone.

British forces began handing over the provinces last year, but suffered ever-deadlier attacks as they withdrew.

Of the 134 British service members killed by enemy action in Iraq, more than 30 died in a four-month period from April-July this year after Blair announced plans to withdraw from Basra.

In May, generals had to call off plans to dispatch Prince Harry, a tank officer, to serve in Iraq because it became too unsafe to send the man third in line to the throne.

Attacks on the British largely stopped in September after a final 500 British troops withdrew from a palace in the centre of Basra and relocated to the main air base outside the city.