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The new Iraqi prime minister said Monday his forces could be in charge in most of Iraq by December and officials with visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair said all foreign troops may be gone within four years.

Demonstrating his support for Nuri al-Maliki by flying in just two days after his national unity government was sworn in, Blair would not be drawn on deadlines:

"We want to move as fast as we can but it has to be done in a way that protects the Iraqi people," he told a joint news conference.

But Maliki said that two British-run provinces in the south could be handed to Iraqi security forces next month and a statement by the two governments issued afterwards said: "By the end of this year, responsibility for much of Iraq's territorial security should have been transferred to Iraqi control."

Two bomb attacks killed nine people in Baghdad to underline a new warning from Maliki that Iraq faces "civil war" if his government fails to rein in "militias" generally code for armed groups run by fellow Shi'ite Muslims in his cabinet.

The installation after months of sectarian and ethnic argument of Iraq's first full-term government since the US and British invasion that ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003 has focused attention on plans for pulling out some 150,000 foreign troops.

"It's been longer and harder than any of us would have wanted it to be but this is a new beginning," said Blair, who has spent much political capital on the controversial war.

A senior British official accompanying him said that London hoped all but some non-combatant foreign soldiers could be withdrawn by the time of the next Iraqi election in late 2009.

"The aim is to take Iraq to a position where the multinational force is able to withdraw during its (the government's) period in office," the official said.

"During the four years, the present role and structure of the multinational force will change and come to an end."

Maliki acknowledged that 325,000 Iraqi troops and police due to be recruited by December would need further training. There are now 264,000 of them.

Moving gradually through Iraq's 18 provinces, overall control of security could pass into Iraqi hands by the end of 2006, Maliki said a more ambitious target than US and British commanders have been prepared to mention privately.

Only Baghdad and the Sunni insurgent stronghold of Anbar in the west might remain under US command, he suggested, with the southern Shi'ite provinces of Samawa and Amara moving from British control as early as next month.

(China Daily May 23, 2006)