Britain could start pulling out soldiers from Iraq next year, Defence Secretary John Reid said Monday, but stressed it would not be held to any timetable for withdrawing forces.

Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said on Sunday that British troops could leave the country within a year because Iraqi security forces would be ready to replace them.

Reid said any plans to hand over to Iraqi security forces would be contingent on events on the ground and continued attacks by insurgents would only delay the process.

"When they develop the security forces to the level where they can take control of that counter terrorism we will hand over that to the Iraqis themselves," Reid told the BBC.

"We are not saying that everyone will be out by the end of 2006 but we are saying that this process ... is going relatively well and in the course of the next year we could well see the handover to Iraqi forces at certain places in Iraq, including in our own area," Reid said.

Iraqis are working on training their own soldiers and police to take full control of security of their country and fight a Sunni Arab insurgency that has killed thousands of people since 2003's US-led invasion.

Britain has about 8,000 soldiers in Iraq stationed mainly in the south. The area had been more stable than some other regions but violence has also risen there in the last few months.

US air strikes kill 37

The US military said Monday air strikes had killed about 37 insurgents in the latest phase of an anti-al-Qaida operation near the Syrian border in western Iraq and 25 insurgents had been captured.

Operation Steel Curtain, launched just over a week ago, entered a new phase Monday, the US military said, when US and Iraqi troops moved into the town of Ubaydi, on the banks of the Euphrates river, 20 kilometres from the border.

"Five targets were struck by coalition air strikes resulting in an estimated 37 insurgents killed," a statement said. "The insurgents were engaging coalition forces with small arms fire at the time of the strikes.

"Insurgent fighters have been battling with Iraqi and coalition forces since the operation began at dawn," it said.

About 2,500 US troops and 1,000 Iraqi soldiers have already swept through the towns of Qusayba and Karabila, clearing houses and battling with insurgents, in what the military says is an offensive aimed at rooting out foreign fighters coming in through Syria to fuel the insurgency.

Also Monday, six people were killed and 30 wounded when a roadside bomb exploded near two coaches in the western Iraqi city of Ramadi, hospital officials said.

Dr Hamdi al-Rawi of Ramadi hospital said 10 of the injured were in serious condition after the blast tore through one of the coaches.

The buses were carrying passengers to Ramadi, 110 kilometres west of Baghdad, from Ta'mim, a small town nearby.

Ramadi is the capital of the western province of Anbar.

Source: China Daily