Baghdad:The US military will next month transfer responsibility for paying 100,000 mostly Sunni fighters battling Al-Qaeda to Baghdad's Shiite-led government, the military said today.

The government of Iraq and coalition forces have agreed in principle to transfer all 100,000 "Sons of Iraq" from October 1,US military spokesman Major John Hall told AFP.

The US military refers to the Sunni fighters, also known as the Awakening or Sahwa, as the Sons of Iraq or "SoIs".

"The transfer will start with the Baghdad province, with the other provinces following at a later date," Hall said.

He said Baghdad alone has around 54,000 Sahwa members under contract to the US military, and these are expected to be transferred to the government on October one.

"The first payment by the government of Iraq will be November 1,2008. The current average monthly cost of these 54,000 SoIs is 15 million dollars," Hall added.

The rest are mainly spread across Sunni regions of Iraq, especially in the provinces of Salaheddin, Diyala, Nineveh and Kirkuk.

The Sahwa were first formed in the western Iraqi Sunni province of Anbar in September 2006 when local Sunni tribes from Anbar, who initially supported Al-Qaeda against US forces, turned against them because of their extremism.

Under the charismatic leadership of Sheikh Abdul Sattar Abu Reesha and backed by the US military, nearly 40 Sunni tribes in Anbar came together and established the first Sahwa council.

Within a year the Sunni Arabs of Anbar had ousted Al-Qaeda and transformed the one-time extremist region into the safest area of Iraq.
Source : PTI