Honduras to remove troops from Iraq

Honduras is to remove its 370 troops from Iraq "in the shortest time possible", President Ricardo Maduro says.

Honduran soldiers had been serving in Najaf under Spanish command, alongside small forces from El Salvador and the Dominican Republic.

The future of those troops was thrown into doubt on Sunday when Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero ordered his country’s soldiers to return home as soon as possible.

By Congressional mandate, Honduras had been due to leave Iraq around July 1.

Maduro did not give an exact date for their departure, but said during a national television address that the soldiers would return home “in the shortest possible time and under safe conditions for our troops”.