Iraq cancelled leave for all its police and put them on high alert on Sunday ahead of the withdrawal of US combat forces from Iraqi towns and cities at the end of the month, an official said. The US pullback from urban centres has been seen as a milestone on the country's road to sovereignty six years after the US military invaded to topple Saddam Hussein.
But a string of bombings in Baghdad and northern Iraq this week, including two of the bloodiest attacks for more than a year, have shaken the confidence of Iraqis in their own forces. Security was tightened across the capital on Sunday, with troops and police closing roads and carefully searching cars.
"The alert has gone to all of our forces. There will be no days off. They are at their full strength across the whole country, at 100 percent," said Major General Abdul-Karim Khalaf, spokesman for the interior ministry, which controls the police. "All of our units have seen an increase in their numbers, not only at the checkpoints," he told Reuters.
Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Saturday that the US withdrawal sent a message to the world that Iraq could handle its own security. The government trusted its forces to defeat al Qaeda militants and criminal gangs, he added.
Two big bombings in Baghdad and near the northern city of Kirkuk in recent days killed more than 150 people between them. On Friday, a bomb killed at least 13 people at a Baghdad market. A string of other smaller blasts has also fuelled fears. US and Iraqi officials have warned they expect the number of attacks to increase as the US troops pull back, and also in the run-up to a parliamentary election next January.
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