British forces were yesterday to launch their official withdrawal from Iraq, a months-long process ending a role that started with the US-led invasion six years ago.
Senior US, British and Iraqi officers were expected to mark the occasion in recognition of the 179 British soldiers, airmen and sailors who have died in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion.
The British-led coalition base in Basra will lower its flag and transfer to US control in a key transitional step toward all foreign troops leaving the country and a full return to Iraqi sovereignty.
“It is the beginning of the drawdown of coalition forces of which Britain has been an integral part,” a senior British officer said.
“Although this is the start of a withdrawal, there is still work to be done and that will continue until the last British soldier has left the country,” the official said.
The UK, under former British prime minister Tony Blair, was The US’ key ally when former US president George W. Bush ordered his forces to invade Iraq and topple its former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein.
British troop numbers in the campaign were the second largest, peaking at 46,000 in March and April 2003 at the height of combat operations.
A deal signed by Baghdad and London last year agreed that the last 4,100 British soldiers would complete their mission — primarily training the Iraqi army — by June, before a complete withdrawal from the country in late July.
Yesterday’s departure begins almost 50 years after its previous exit from Iraq, in May 1959, when the last soldiers left Habbaniyah base near the western town of Fallujah, ending a presence that dated back to 1918.
The British contribution to the invasion and subsequent reconstruction efforts has been praised by US and Iraqi officers.
“British forces have been our strongest ally throughout this campaign,” said US Army Major General Michael Oates, who was to become the senior coalition officer in Basra when the British-led unit ceased to exist yesterday. “They have done an outstanding job and our task is to continue that work.”
And the Iraqi army’s senior officer in the province used a farewell feast at Basra’s Shaat al-Arab Hotel at the weekend to praise the UK for its support in the wake of Saddam’s ouster.
“I would like to thank the British nation for the assistance they have provided to help rid us of dictatorship and live in freedom and democracy,” Major General Hawedi Mohammed said.
Basra, Iraq’s third-largest city and a strategic oil hub, had been under British command since the invasion, but the province and its airport returned to Iraqi control three months ago.
The British pullout comes as the US military also steps up preparations to leave Iraq.
Under a US-Iraqi security agreement signed last November, US troops must withdraw from major towns and cities by June 30 and from the whole country by the end of 2011.
Meanwhile, Iraqi police said a suicide truck bomber killed at least seven people and wounded 17 in the northern city of Mosul. A police officer in Mosul said the attacker was targeting a police station.
Police Major Jassim al-Jubouri said those killed included four policemen and three civilians.
Yesterday’s bombing is the latest in a string of attacks in Iraq this month that has raised fears insurgents are trying to regroup as the US prepares to withdraw all its forces by the end of 2011.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
PROBE: Last week, Romanian prosecutors launched a criminal investigation against presidential candidate Calin Georgescu accusing him of supporting fascist groups Tens of thousands of protesters gathered in Romania’s capital on Saturday in the latest anti-government demonstration by far-right groups after a top court canceled a presidential election in the EU country last year. Protesters converged in front of the government building in Bucharest, waving Romania’s tricolor flags and chanting slogans such as “down with the government” and “thieves.” Many expressed support for Calin Georgescu, who emerged as the frontrunner in December’s canceled election, and demanded they be resumed from the second round. George Simion, the leader of the far-right Alliance for the Unity of Romanians (AUR), which organized the protest,
RSS