DIWNIYAH: Although he has been on other missions such as Kosovo and Albania, Spanish Captain Enrique Gomariz, 34, said that his mission with the Plus Ultra II brigade leaving Iraq soon has been very different. He is definitely proud to have served "in a risky place like Iraq" but after four months is happy to go back home to his family.

"In our mission here, we were exposing ourselves to danger but this has been partly our mission; to take security missions to prevent any attack against us during our assignment, and we feel proud that the index of criminality has gone down in our area here, though there are still radicals like everywhere else," he said.

Senior corporal Jesus Andres, 40, who has also been on missions in Bosnia and Kosovo, has been sent to Iraq for just a week to take part in what the Spanish troops have said is "their hardest mission since they came to Iraq" - their return to Spain.

Last weekend newly elected Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero announced that Spain was to withdraw its 1,300 troops from Iraq as soon as possible. "When we came here we first had orders to fulfil, now our brigade has a different order after the new decisions taken and we are going to fulfil the new orders with the same enthusiasm," Andres said.

He said the brigade is remaining "100 per cent alert" even as it withdraws. The Plus Ultra II brigade was due to be replaced by the troops of the new brigade Plus Ultra III at a ceremony on Wednesday at the Spanish troops' base in Qasidiyah, almost 200 kilometres south of Baghdad. -dpa