LONDON, Sept. 2 (Xinhua) -- British troops are pulling out of a base in the southern Iraq, the Sky News reported on Sunday.

    Some 500 of British 5,500 troops in Iraq, which were stationed at Basra Palace built for Saddam Hussein, are moving back to Basra airport in the city's outskirts, said the report.

British soldiers patrol a road in Basra, 550 km (340 miles) south of Baghdad, in this February 21, 2007 file photo. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
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    "I can confirm that an operation is ongoing, but we will not give any further details," a military spokesman in Basra Major Mike Shearer was quoted by the Sky News as saying.

    According to the report, the operation to move the troops is expected to be finished around midnight British time.

    Basra is the last of five provinces in British sphere of operations in southern Iraq yet to move to local Iraqi control. And Prime Minister Gordon Brown had said that Basra would move to "overwatch" as soon as conditions on the ground permitted the move.

    British withdrawal from Basra Palace, on the banks of the Shatt-al-Arab waterway, was part of the process of handing over to Iraqi security forces. And it will be seen as symbolic as pressure mounts on Brown to announce a timetable for Britain's forces to pull out of Iraq altogether.

British soldiers take up positions while on patrol a few miles to the north of Basra, July 12, 2007. (Xinhua/Reuters Photo)
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    According to the report by The Sunday Times, Britain was preparing to hand over control of Basra province to the Iraqi army as early as next month, enabling most of the 5,500 British soldiers to leave Iraq.

    Britain, U.S. staunchest ally in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, stations the second largest number of troops, following the United States, in the battered country.

    Currently, Britain has some 5,500 troops in southern Iraq. And Since 2003, there are about 169 British soldiers killed in Iraq.