Mobile UPI  |   About UPI  |   UPI en Español  |   UPI Arabic  |   UPIU  |   My Account
Search:
Go

13 countries set to withdraw from Iraq

|
|
 
  
Published: Nov. 29, 2008 at 11:57 AM

BAGHDAD, Nov. 29 (UPI) -- A total of 13 countries with troops currently stationed in Iraq will soon remove those soldiers from the war-torn country, a military official says.

Brig. Gen. Nicolas Matern, Multi-National Corps Iraq deputy commander, said with a U.N. mandate that offered the countries authorization to operate in Iraq set to expire at year's end, coalition forces are set to be significantly depleted, The Times of London reported Saturday.

Matern said the mandate expires on Dec. 31 and 13 countries including Japan and South Korea will be removing their Iraq forces in preparation for that date.

"We are going to say farewell to 13 different nations in the space of two and a half weeks," Matern, whose group supervises all coalition partners of the U.S. military, said.

Matern said the loss of the 13 countries follows similar troop withdrawals by other former coalition members.

"We started off with 35 countries but it has steadily been going down ... As from December it is going to go all the way down," he said.

The military official told The Times that the only remaining U.S. allies in Iraq after the mandate's expiration will be Australia, Britain, El Salvador, Estonia and Romania.

Recommended Stories
© 2008 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Any reproduction, republication, redistribution and/or modification of any UPI content is expressly prohibited without UPI's prior written consent.

Order reprints
  
Join the conversation
Most Popular Collections
Notable deaths of 2012 Scripps National Spelling Bee AmfAR Cinema Against AIDS gala
Indianapolis 500 Presidential Medal of Freedom Memorial Day around the nation
Additional Top News Stories
1 of 27
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego wins Finals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee
View Caption
Snigdha Nandipati of San Diego, California watches confetti rain down as she wins the two-day Scripps National Spelling Bee championship, May 31, 2012, in National Harbor, Maryland. Nandipati successfully spelled the word .* guetapens *, meaning to lure or ambush. UPI/Mike Theiler
fark
Photoshop this power tower technician
Driving drunk and unlicensed, with a kid not even buckled let alone in a safety seat, en route to...
Man killed in Spencer fire. The lava lamps must have ignited the blacklight posters
Passenger jet crashes into apartment building in Nigerian capitol. Over 150 princes, bank officials,...
I'll see your zombie apocalypse, and raise you "swarms of deadly spiders" invading a town in India...
Photoshop this woman at the wheel