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Baghdad. Iraq regained full control if its towns and cities on Tuesday as US troops pulled back, six years after the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Though some Iraqis fear the first step in a full US withdrawal may leave them open to attack, the government declared Tuesday a holiday.

A car bomb exploded at a market in Kirkuk, northern Iraq, killing 20 and injuring 25.

“This day, which we consider a national celebration, is an achievement made by all Iraqis,” Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said in a televised address, as citizens drove around the streets with flags and plastic flowers draped over their cars.

“Our incomplete sovereignty and the presence of foreign troops is the most serious legacy we have inherited” from Saddam, he said. “Those who think that Iraqis are unable to defend their country are committing a fatal mistake.”

By midnight on Tuesday, all US combat units must have withdrawn from Iraq’s urban centers and redeployed to rural bases, according to a bilateral security pact that requires all US troops except for trainers and advisers to leave Iraq by the end of 2011.

In a reminder of the war unleashed by the 2003 invasion, the US military said that four soldiers based in Baghdad died of combat-related injuries on Monday.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said the United States had closed or returned to local control 120 bases and facilities, and would turn over or close 30 more by the end of Tuesday.

The day’s festivities included a parade in Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone, seen by Iraqis as the ultimate symbol of the foreign military presence until local forces took control of it in January.

“We still have important steps to take and we know our way forward is not easy,” Interior Minister Jawad al-Bolani said at the parade. “We need to develop our intelligence gathering and technical abilities, because the next war is an intelligence war.”

Maliki has compared the US pullback to rebellions by Iraqi tribes against the former British empire in 1920. Many Iraqis see it as restoring their national pride.

“Definitely, our forces can take control of things now,” said Dawood Dawood, who owns a bathroom appliance shop in downtown Baghdad. “The US withdrawal is a positive step.”

Some fear a resurgence of violence without the presence of US forces in Iraqi cities, although their bases remain close enough for them to redeploy if needed.

Reuters