It was not possible to immediately confirm the report with the Spanish defense ministry.

Spain's Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, who came to power in a surprise election upset in March, is fulfilling a campaign pledge to pull his country's forces from Iraq.

The bulk of the Spanish contingent, originally of 1,430 troops, left the war-torn country on April 28, with a small number of troops handling the withdrawal.

Spanish soldiers finished withdrawing from their main base in the southern Shiite Muslim holy city of Najaf on April 27.

Spanish forces transferred operations at Diwaniyah to US forces on Sunday.

Zapatero said last week he was glad that he decided to withdraw his country's troops from Iraq, especially given the upsurge in violence by insurgents and the scandal over abuse of Iraqi prisoners by coalition soldiers.

Speaking to parliament, Zapatero said the pullout "is a decision with which I am increasingly satisfied for having made it when I did".

The new government's first announcement after coming to power was that it would pull out Spanish soldiers serving in Iraq unless the United Nations took political and military control of the country on June 30, the scheduled date for the US-led coalition to hand over power to an Iraqi administration.

Having concluded that such a UN role was not in the offing, Zapatero announced on April 18 that he had decided to pull out the Spanish contingent "as soon as possible".

Spain's decision dented the US-led coalition, with Honduras and the Dominican Republic following Madrid's lead and also moving to pull out their troops.

Washington has so far not found any country willing to contribute new troops to replace the departing Spanish and Latin American soldiers.

WAR.WIRE