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Britain to pull out 3,000 troops

Hasan Suroor

LONDON: On a day when U.S. President George W. Bush provoked anger and ridicule by announcing a "surge'' in American troops in Iraq, Britain was reported to be planning to pull out some 3,000 troops by May.

Media reports said that the British military presence in Iraq was expected to be reduced to 4,500 by May 31 after the proposed withdrawal from Basra.

Security hand-over

Currently, Britain has a little over 7,000 troops, mostly in southern Iraq, and in recent months they have come under repeated attacks from groups resisting foreign occupation.

According to a report in The Daily Telegraph, Britain plans to hand over "all security'' in Basra to Iraqi security forces by May-end.

"The British army will then position its troops at a major base that is being expanded at Basra air station, five miles west of the city, where they will be on standby. A small force of 200 men will be left in central Basra,'' it said. The reported move fits in with the idea of a phased withdrawal of British troops over a one-year period. Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett confirmed that the process of handover of Basra to Iraqi forces was underway but describing the timing mentioned in the Telegraph report as "speculative''.

"We are under way with the process of handover as the security situation improves. We will make our judgements and our decisions depending on the progress of those events...The Telegraph may speculate about timing and so on, but it does depend on how things go in Basra," she said.

Reacting to Mr. Bush's decision which drew flak both from Liberal Democrats and the Tories, Ms. Beckett said: "We welcome that and we hope that the joint effort to resolve this very difficult security situation which is undermining efforts to put other things right in Iraq will indeed succeed."

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