British troops return Basra to Iraqis
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British troops today handed over responsibilty for security in the southern Iraqi province of Basra, a major landmark in the scaling-back of the foreign military presence nearly five years on from the U.S.-led invasion. "As you step up, we step back," British commander, Maj. Gen. Graham Binns, told Iraqi leaders.
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British soldiers are feared injured after a "hostile incident" in the Iraqi city of Basra.
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LONDON - Hundreds of British troops returned to their base in southern Iraq yesterday, ending a monthlong deployment requested by the United States for an offensive in a restive region near Baghdad.
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British Lt. Col. James Cowan said the troops left the southern city of Basra to head for a base in Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad.
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UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, making a surprise visit to Iraq today, met with British troops near Basra after talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi in Baghdad.
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A group of newly-arrived British soldiers came under small arms fire near Iraq's main southern city of Basra, without causing casualties, a spokesman for the British-led military in the area said.
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Iraq formally took over security control of the southern oil province of Basra from British forces on Sunday paving the way for Britain to sharply reduce its nearly 5,000-strong troop presence.
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BASRA, Iraq  - Britain handed over security to Iraqi forces on Sunday in the last of four provinces it once patrolled, effectively marking the end of nearly five years of British control of southern Iraq.
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After four and a half inconclusive years of fighting, British forces during the night slipped out of their last base in the Iraqi oil port of Basra, handing control on Monday to their Iraqi comrades.
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UK forces are to hand back control of security in Basra province to Iraq, four-and-a-half years after the invasion.
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BASRA, Iraq  - British troops quit the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Monday, an Iraqi general said, ending the British presence in the oil hub for the first time since the U.S.-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein in 2003.
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Basra, Iraq -- The British military says its troops have begun heading north to Baghdad from their base in southern Iraq. Large flatbed trucks can be seen carrying armored British vehicles up a road through Iraq&#39;s southern desert.
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The 850-strong Black Watch battle group is settling back into its Basra base ahead of the troops&#39; anticipated return to the UK within the next week.
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Some 200 soldiers from the Black Watch regiment arrived back in Britain after spending a month deployed in one of the most violent areas of Iraq.
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Britain put Iraqis in command of the  main Iraqi army unit in Basra on Tuesday, a move billed as  paving the way for Washington's main ally to formally announce  major cutbacks in troops.
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Tony Blair is expected to announce the return of hundreds of troops from southern Iraq to the UK.
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British and Iraqi forces in Basra began Operation Sinbad, a several-month long attempt to restore security and rebuild the troubled southern port city, a British military spokesman said.