The handover of security control of the Shiite province of Diwaniyah from the US military to Iraqi forces has been canceled, a local government official said yesterday.
Sheikh Ghanim Abid Dahash, spokesman for Diwanyiah provincial council, said the transfer has been postponed “indefinitely because there is no coordination between the central government and the US forces.”
Dahash did not give details but the US military also confirmed that the transfer had been canceled.
Dahash said a curfew, which was imposed in the province on Sunday evening to prevent any insurgent attacks during the handover ceremony, was also lifted.
Diwaniyah, formerly known as Qadisiyah, was to be the 10th of Iraq’s 18 provinces to be taken over by local forces from US-led foreign troops, amid a push to transfer security control of the entire country back to Baghdad.
Diwaniyah has often been rocked by infighting as rival Shiite militias vie for supremacy.
In other developments, Iraqi guards opened fire on a female suicide bomber on Sunday and triggered her explosives belt before she reached their headquarters, foiling the latest of more than 20 suicide missions by women this year, military officials said.
The bomber was targeting the headquarters of an awakening council — Sunni volunteers who have turned against insurgents — about 96km northeast of Baghdad. One of the guards was wounded in the blast, the Iraqi military said.
The number of female suicide attackers has risen from eight in last year to more than 20 so far this year, US military figures show. Including Sunday’s attack, at least nine have occurred in Diyala Province, a former al-Qaeda stronghold where the extremist group is trying to regroup after setbacks last year.
A truck bomb detonated by remote control on Sunday killed six policemen and an awakening council member in Duluiyah, some 72km north of Baghdad, police Colonel Mohammed Khalid said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has been stepping up pressure on extremists in recent months. But the crackdown backfired when a relative of the prime minister was killed early Friday in a raid on Hindiyah, east of Karbala, local officials said.
Ali Abdul-Hussein, said to be a cousin of al-Maliki, was shot dead in a raid conducted by 60 US soldiers supported by four helicopters and a fighter jet, provincial police chief Raed Shakir said.
Officials close to the prime minister said the killing had enraged al-Maliki and he has demanded an explanation from the Americans.
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