 
CHANNELS SPACEWAR WIRE MILITARY SPACE UAV NEWS MILITARY COMMS CYBERWARS MISSILE NEWS RAYGUNS TERRORWARS SPACEDAILY TERRADAILY MARSDAILY SPACE TRAVEL SPACEMART SPACE DATABASE  SERVICES |  
The last Spanish soldiers pulled out of their former base in the southern Iraqi town of Diwaniyah on Friday and were expected to cross the border into neighbouring Kuwait within hours, Spanish national radio station RNE reported. It was not possible to immediately confirm the report with the Spanish defense ministry. Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who came to power in a surprise election upset in March, is fulfilling a campaign pledge to pull his country's forces from Iraq. The bulk of the Spanish contingent, originally of 1,430 troops, left the war-torn country on April 28, with a small number of troops handling the withdrawal. Spanish soldiers finished withdrawing from their main base in the southern Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf on April 27. Spanish forces transferred operations at Diwaniyah to US forces on Sunday. Zapatero said last week he was glad that he decided to withdraw his country's troops from Iraq, especially given the upsurge in violence by insurgents and the scandal over abuse of Iraqi prisoners by coalition soldiers. Speaking to parliament, Zapatero said the pullout "is a decision with which I am increasingly satisfied for having made it when I did". The new government's first announcement after coming to power was that it would pull out Spanish soldiers serving in Iraq unless the United Nations took political and military control of the country on June 30, the scheduled date for the US-led coalition to hand over power to an Iraqi administration. Having concluded that such a UN role was not in the offing, Zapatero announced on April 18 that he had decided to pull out the Spanish contingent "as soon as possible". Spain's decision dented the US-led coalition, with Honduras and the Dominican Republic following Madrid's lead and also moving to pull out their troops. Washington has so far not found any country willing to contribute new troops to replace the departing Spanish and Latin American soldiers. All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse. Quick Links
|
|
| The contents herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2002 - SpaceDaily. AFP Wire Stories are copyright Agence France-Presse ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by SpaceDaily on any web page published or hosted by SpaceDaily. Privacy Statement |