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Iraqis take control as US troops quit cities

4 American soldiers killed in Baghdad

AFP, AP, Baghdad
Iraqi security forces paraded in tanks and armoured vehicles across Baghdad yesterday as they took control of towns and cities nationwide from departing US troops six years after the invasion.
Iraq was celebrating a national holiday to mark the June 30 pullback, a milestone in the recovery of a country battered by war, insurgency and sectarian bloodshed that has left tens of thousands of people dead since 2003.
Iraqis had celebrated into Monday night but soldiers and police were out in force to prevent insurgent groups spoiling the party as American troops quit their posts in urban centres, ahead of complete pullout by the end of 2011.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, however, said the nation's joy at the handover was mixed with sorrow for "beloved
friends and relatives" who had been " targeted by terror."
But he also took aim at critics of Iraq's army and police and insisted they were up to the task of defending the country in the wake of the US pullback.
"It is a big mistake for people to think that the Iraqis will not handle the security issue," Maliki said.
"It is an offence to the Iraqis. The people who said that the foreign troops would never withdraw and would keep permanent bases in our country were giving a green light to the terrorists to kill civilians."
President Jalal Talabani thanked US forces for their role in overthrowing now executed dictator Saddam Hussein in 2003, and in the years of bloodshed that followed.
"They bore the burden and dangers against the most cruel regime and against the mutual enemy -- the terror," Talabani
said on state television.
The handover coincided with a US army announcement that four of its soldiers died from combat-related injuries on Monday, taking to 4,321 the number of American troops killed since the invasion.
General Ray Odierno, the top US commander in Iraq, told reporters he believed Iraq was now a better country.
Meanwhile, four US soldiers were killed in combat on the eve of the withdrawal of American troops from Baghdad and other Iraq cities, the US military said, as Iraqi forces on Tuesday assumed control for security in urban areas.
The US military said the four soldiers served with the Multi-National Division-Baghdad but did not provide further details pending notification of their families. It said they died as a "result of combat related injuries."