Iraq to take control of once-restive Anbar

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States will hand over security control of Iraq's once restive Anbar province to the Iraqi government within days, the top U.S. Marine Corps officer said on Wednesday.

"The province could turn over to Iraqi control in just a few days," Marine Corps Commandant, Gen. James Conway, told reporters of the province west of Baghdad that was a hotbed of al Qaeda violence until local Iraqis shifted allegiance to the United States.

(Reporting by David Morgan, Editing by Sandra Maler)