UK starts Iraq pullout

British troops launched their pullout from Iraq yesterday with the lowering of a Royal Marines flag and handover of a Basra base to US control six years after their joint invasion.
A ceremony in the southern province of Basra marked the official start of a months-long process ending a role that kicked off with the 2003 US-led invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.
"Our nations are bonded by the blood we have shed together. That is a bond that no man can break," said General Ray Odierno, senior US military officer in Iraq, shortly before a US flag went up and the Royal Marines colours went down.
"You have restored hope where chaos reigned," he said before an audience of about 300 invited guests including top US, British and Iraqi officers and diplomats from all three countries.
Meanwhile, a suicide truck bombing on a security post in Iraq's restive northern city of Mosul yesterday killed at least seven people, in an attack bearing the hallmark of al-Qaeda, police said.
The attack in the Al-Bid district of central Mosul killed seven people, including four policemen, and wounded at least 17 others, nine of them police, said Captain Ahmad al-Sabbawi.