Airlift of US troops from South Korea to Iraq begins in earnest

[Barrett808]

OSAN AIRBASE, South Korea (AFP) - Hundreds of US soldiers left for Kuwait, the first major airlift in the planned redeployment of American troops from South Korea to Iraq, US military authorities said.

Some 600 soldiers of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division departed this US airforce base, 70 kilometers (44 miles) south of Seoul, to help bolster the US military presence in the war-torn country.

The airlift forms part of the redeployment of 3,600 troops from South Korea to Iraq announced in May by the US Department of Defence.

"This is the first major departure of the soldiers from the brigade combat team that are going to Iraq," Lieutenant Colonel Tom Budzyna, a public affairs official of the US Eighth Army, told AFP.

He said advance soldiers and others assisting in the deployment before returning to South Korea had already left for Kuwait bound for Iraq over the past few days.

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