"The plan is that by May 27 there will be no Spanish personnel on Iraqi territory," said Zapatero, who made pulling out the troops from the violence-wracked country a key pledge ahead of his election last month.

"No Spanish member of the Plus Ultra II brigade remains in Iraq," the Socialist leader told parliament. He was referring to the initial contingent Madrid sent to join a force of Spanish-speaking nations operating under Polish control south of Baghdad.

Spanish soldiers, who at the last count numbered 1,432 on the ground in Iraq, were first sent to the country in August 2003 by Zapatero's right-wing predecessor Jose Maria Aznar in the face of overwhelming public opposition.

But in a blow to the US-led occupation, Zapatero announced on April 18 that the troops would be pulled out as soon as possible, a move followed by Honduras and the Dominican Republic, which were also part of the Plus Ultra force.

Zapatero said Tuesday the military personnel that still remained in Iraq were tasked with security and logistics operations, although he gave no figures.

Earlier Tuesday, the Spanish military in Iraq announced it had completed its withdrawal from the holy Shiite Muslim city of Najaf, after US-led forces killed 43 militiamen loyal to radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr in fierce fighting nearby.

Spanish troops had clashed Sunday and Monday with Sadr's forces, which attacked them near the Spanish military base of Diwaniyah, east of Najaf. The occupation troops were reported to have killed eight Iraqis but suffered no casualties themselves.

Sadr's militia has been holed up in Najaf for more than two weeks with US forces massed outside the city in a bid to capture the cleric. He is accused by the coalition of sparking a bloody rebellion against the US-led occupation.

Spanish general Jose Manuel Munoz, in charge of the withdrawal from the holy city, said his troops would be within their rights to respond if they were attacked again before their departure from Iraq.

Sadr, who the United States has vowed to kill or capture, has repeatedly threatened suicide bombings against the coalition forces if they attack Iraq's holy cities.

The Zapatero government came to power last month in a surprise electoral upset for Aznar following the March 11 rail bombings in Madrid that killed almost 200 people.

The Socialists had said in their electoral platform that they would pull Spain's forces out of Iraq unless the United Nations could be brought into the running of the war-torn country.

Although the original withdrawal plan referred to the date of June 30 -- the date on which the US-led coalition has said it will transfer power to Iraqis -- the Spanish government later concluded that there was no hope of a UN involvement that would allow it to keep its troops in the country.

The Spanish troops were part of a 9,000-strong Polish-led force controlling a swathe of Iraq south of Baghdad.

All rights reserved. Copyright 2003 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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