Baghdad: The U.S. military in Iraq falls under Iraqi authority on Thursday for the first time since the U.S.-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein in 2003, a milestone in the war-weary country's path to restoring sovereignty.

The U.S. force in Iraq, now more than 140,000 strong, has operated since 2003 under a U.N. Security Council resolution which expired at midnight on New Year's Eve.

Starting Jan. 1, troops will operate under the authority of the Iraqi government, according to a pact signed earlier this year by Washington and Baghdad.

The pact gives U.S. troops three years to leave Iraq, revokes their power to detain Iraqis without an Iraqi warrant, and subjects contractors and, in some cases, U.S. troops to Iraqi law.

The new, tough terms of the U.S. presence here were secured by an increasingly confident Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, emboldened by a maturing democracy, military victories against Shi'ite militias and progress against al Qaeda militants.

U.S. and Iraqi officials hold a ceremony on Thursday morning to formally hand over control of the Green Zone, the heavily fortified Baghdad compound from which the United States governed Iraq directly for more than a year after the invasion.

"The role of the coalition forces (in the Green Zone) will be secondary, centred on training Baghdad brigade troops to use equipment to detect explosives and advising Iraqi forces," Qassim Moussawi, spokesman of Iraqi forces in Baghdad, said.

Iraqi forces take over control of the heart of U.S. power in Iraq as U.S. forces across the country prepare to operate in new concert with local troops. While U.S. soldiers remain under U.S. command, U.S. military operations are to be authorised starting Thursday by a joint U.S.-Iraqi committee.

Source : Reuters