WASHINGTON, Aug 20, (Agencies): US troops will still be in combat and taking on Islamist militants in Iraq even as the American military moves to an “advise and assist” role with a smaller force, officials said Thursday.
The withdrawal of the last US combat brigade on Thursday was hailed as a symbolic moment for the controversial American presence in Iraq, more than seven years since the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

But while the remaining 50,000 troops will no longer have a formal combat mission after September 1, they will be well-armed and possibly coming under fire as they join in manhunts for al-Qaeda figures or other extremists.
“I don’t think anybody has declared the end of the war as far as I know,” Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told MSNBC.
“Counter-terrorism will still be part of their mission,” said Morrell, referring to the fight against militant networks.
The 50,000-strong force will operate in six “advise and assist brigades,” taking part in operations at the request of Baghdad authorities and playing a supporting role to Iraqi units.
The US troops “will continue to conduct partnered counter-terrorism operations” in an effort “to help Iraqi security forces maintain pressure on the extremist networks and protect the citizens of Iraq,” Major Christopher Perrine told AFP.
The brigades are equipped with robots, unmanned aircraft and dog teams to help track militants and roadside bombs, along with experts in intelligence and logistics, he said.

Recent bombings have underscored the threat still posed by al-Qaeda and other militants in Iraq, even though the Qaeda network has suffered severe setbacks with the deaths of senior leaders and a shortage of cash.
Al-Qaeda’s structure in Iraq remains “pretty much intact,” the head of US special operations command, Brigadier General Patrick Higgins, told the Washington Post this month.
Even as the Pentagon draws down the force in Iraq, US special operations command — which focuses on counter-terrorist operations — will stay at the same level of 4,500 troops.
Violence has spiked as the US draws down, with a suicide bomb Tuesday at an army recruitment center in Baghdad killing 59 people, the majority of them prospective soldiers, in the bloodiest attack in Iraq this year.

The shift in the US military role has been underway for months, with June 2009 serving as a turning point when Iraqi security forces took the lead in the country’s major cities and towns.
“At that point, we were not unilaterally conducting any combat operations anymore,” Morrell said.
“So when they have a bad guy they need to go after and they want our assistance doing it, there’s a warrant, they ask for our assistance and we go after them together.”
He added that US forces will have the right to defend themselves in any situation “should that become necessary.”

The US military presence, while dramatically altered, may continue long after the end of 2011, when all American forces are supposed to depart under a security agreement.
Top military leaders in both countries acknowledge Iraq still may need help from the US armed forces after 2011.
“We’re obviously open to that discussion,” US Defense Secretary Robert Gates said last week. “But that initiative will have to come from the Iraqis.”
Meanwhile, With the United States drawing down troops in Iraq, the State Department plans to double the number of private security contractors it uses to ensure the safety of the huge civilian development effort, officials said on Thursday.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said the plan would bring to some 7,000 the total security contractors employed by the government in Iraq, where since the 2003 US invasion private security firms have often been accused of acting above the law.
“We will still have our own security needs to make sure that our diplomats and development experts are well protected,” Crowley told a news briefing.
“We have very specific plans to increase our security ... as the military is leaving. This will be expensive. this is not a cheap proposition,” he said, although he added the costs to the US taxpayer would still be far less than those incurred by the military deployment.
The employment of contractors has caused anger in Iraq, particularly after a US court dismissed charges against Blackwater Worldwide guards accused of killing 14 Iraqi civilians in Baghdad in 2007.
Contractors’ immunity from prosecution was lifted last year under a US-Iraqi security pact that gave Iraq back its sovereignty.

In another development, Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki and former premier Iyad Allawi have resumed negotiations aimed at forming a government after falling out briefly over a sectarian row, senior politicians said on Friday.
Iraq has drifted in a dangerous political vacuum since a March election produced no outright winner. Attacks by insurgents have raised fears of a return to broader violence as US troops end combat operations this month.
Osama al-Nujaifi, a senior member of Allawi’s Sunni-backed Iraqiya, said Allawi had agreed to resume talks with Maliki’s Shiite-led State of Law bloc after breaking off talks because Maliki described Allawi’s group as Sunni, rather than cross-sectarian.
“Allawi received a letter the day before yesterday from Maliki regarding the last stand made by Iraqiya. I am not aware of the details of the letter but Allawi considers that the letter is sufficient to reconcile and overcome the situation,” Nujaifi told Reuters.
Ali al-Dabbagh, a senior State of Law member, said he visited Allawi on Thursday to restart negotiations and handed him two proposals — one on forming a coalition government and the second on political and administrative reform.
In another development, an al-Qaeda in Iraq front group on Friday claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing this week that killed 61 Iraqi army recruits in the deadliest single act of violence in Baghdad in months.

The Islamic State of Iraq, which includes al-Qaeda in Iraq and other allied Sunni insurgent factions, boasted that its operative easily passed through checkpoints before detonating his explosives belt in a crowd of officers and recruits outside army headquarters Tuesday.
The bomber was able to “break all barriers” and strike “Shiite infidels and other apostates who were selling their religion,” the group said in a statement posted on a militant website.
The Iraqi army’s recruitment drive aimed to hire soldiers from of the country’s poorest Shiite areas. The Islamic State of Iraq is a Sunni extremist group that considers Shiites heretics.