Iraq's parliamentary Security and Defense Committee revealed Jan. 20 the readiness of the military command to hand over security duties to the local police in seven provinces in the center and south of the country. This follows a debate in the National Security Council Jan. 8, headed by Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, on the transfer of security duties from the Ministry of Defense to the Ministry of Interior.

Earlier, concrete steps were taken on the ground in some provinces. On Jan. 9, the Diwaniya province police announced that it started taking over security control from the Middle Euphrates Operations Command as of Jan. 1. In turn, the Diyala police command confirmed Jan. 3 that this year would witness a transfer of the security duties across all provinces without exception.

Security has stabilized across Iraq’s cities, as indicated by the decline in bombings and attacks, after the defeat of the Islamic State (IS) in Iraq on Dec. 10, 2017. Hisham al-Hashimi, a security expert at Al-Nahrain Center for Strategic Studies, believes this is the moment to speed up the transfer of security duties to the police and withdraw army troops from the cities back to their barracks.

He told Al-Monitor, “The joint Iraqi forces have improved their capabilities and achieved great victories in urban areas and peripheries. A positive security transformation has occurred since the joint operations command united the efforts of operations and units of all armed forces and intelligence command. This has made the deployment of army troops in the stable provinces unjustified. Army troops should be stationed in military camps as a reserve force.”