Spanish forces in Iraq, due to withdraw from the country before the end of the month, on Sunday transferred operations at their base in the southern Iraqi city of Diwaniyah to US forces, the Spanish defence ministry said.
The Spanish general Jose Manuel Munoz, who will continue to manage the running of the base until the force's full departure, paid homage during a ceremony to Spanish troops killed while serving in Iraq.
Spanish soldiers finished withdrawing from their other base in the holy city of Najaf on April 27.
The last Spanish combat troops left Iraq on April 28 and Defence Minister Jose Bono said this week that those in charge of shipping out military materiel might leave sooner than May 27, the scheduled date for officially handing over their bases to the US army.
The first announcement of the government of Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero after coming to power in April was that it would pull out the 1,430 Spanish soldiers serving in Iraq unless the United Nations took political and military control of the country by June 30.
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