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Weather delays Anbar handover ceremony

BAGHDAD — The U.S. military on Friday postponed a ceremony to hand over Anbar province to Iraqi security control, citing forecasts of sandstorms. High winds and sandstorms were expected to sweep Anbar on Saturday, when the ceremony was to have taken place. That would prevent U.S. and Iraqi officials from flying to the venue.

“A new date will be announced as soon as it is made available,” the statement said.

Anbar was the main battleground in the Sunni-led insurgency until Sunni tribes there turned against al-Qaida in Iraq starting in 2006. The tribes now work with the U.S. military to prevent al-Qaida from returning to power in the province.

A suicide attack in the province Thursday at a meeting of U.S.-backed tribal sheiks shows that extremists, including al-Qaida in Iraq, remain a threat, albeit at a diminished level. Twenty people were killed, including three Marines.

Anbar, which extends from the western outskirts of Baghdad to the borders of Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia, will be the 10th of Iraq’s 18 provinces to return to Iraqi security control. The other nine provinces are dominated by Shiites or Kurds.