Honduras begins troop withdrawal from Iraq
4 killed in Kirkuk blast, Dutch soldier & Russian killed in attack
AFP, Tegucigalpa
Honduras has begun its troop withdrawal from Iraq, as the first of its 369 soldiers arrived in Kuwait, Honduran President, Ricardo Maduro, announced in an interview broadcast early yesterday from Tokyo. "I'm pleased to officially announce to the Honduran people that we have begun withdrawing our soldiers from Iraq and that some of them are already in Kuwait," Maduro said. Honduras and the Dominican Republic decided to pull their troops out of Iraq last month, following Spain's decision to do the same. The Honduran soldiers and some 300 Dominican troops were attached to the 1,400-strong Spanish-led brigade in Najaf, 160 kilometers (100 miles) south of Baghdad. Maduro did not specify how many troops had left Iraq, but said preparations for a full withdrawal were well under way and that all the troops would soon return to Tegucigalpa. He refused to provide dates on the pullout "for the security of the soldiers." Madro is on a tour of Japan, Spain and Italy aimed at promoting foreign investment in Honduras. Meanwhile, four people were killed and 25 wounded in an explosion in Iraqi city of Kirkuk yesterday while a Dutch soldier died overnight after being wounded in a grenade attack in Samawa and a Russian national was killed in Baghdad. The death was the first to hit the Dutch contingent in Iraq. Another Dutch soldier was wounded in the attack which happened Monday around 1750 GMT on a Samawa bridge. "The explosion happened in a crowded Kurdish district at 9:50 am (0550 GMT), leaving four dead and 25 hurt," police officer Shirkou Shaker Hakim told AFP. The casualty count was confirmed at the Azadi hospital by doctor Bakshan Abdallah, who said that 14 of the wounded were "seriously hurt". Police said the blast was caused by a powerful device left near the old mosque in the Kurdish area of Iraq's ethnically tense northern oil capital populated by Kurds and Arabs. In another incident one Russian national was killed and two others taken hostage in an attack in Baghdad, RIA Novosti quoted the Russian embassy in Baghdad as saying yesterday. The three were employed by the Interenergoservice company which was working to restore energy supplies to the war-torn country, the report quoted officials as saying. A group of armed men attacked the Russians as they were returning from work by car in Baghdad on Monday afternoon, the report said. They had been working to restore an electric power station located some 50 kilometers (30 miles) south of Baghdad.
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