Quote of note:

Prime Minister Tony Blair's decision to agree to the U.S. request for redeployment is a politically sensitive one for the British leader, whose popularity has plummeted because of his support for the Iraq war.

Britain's 8,500 troops are based around the southern port city of Basra in a relatively peaceful area of Iraq. Sixty-eight British soldiers have been killed in Iraq, compared with more than 1,000 U.S. troops.

British Troops in Iraq Begin Deployment
By RAWYA RAGEH
Associated Press Writer

2:24 AM PDT, October 27, 2004

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Nearly 800 British forces left their base in southern Iraq on Wednesday, heading north toward Baghdad to replace U.S. troops who are expected to take part in an offensive against insurgent strongholds.

The deployment came hours after Iraq's most feared militant group released a video threatening to behead a Japanese captive within 48 hours unless Japan withdraws its troops from Iraq.

British Lt. Col. James Cowan said British troops, accompanied by 40 U.S. Marines, left the southern city of Basra to head for a base located north of Hillah, about 60 miles south of Baghdad. Forty U.S. Marines were with them, he said.

Associated Press Television News footage showed large flatbed trucks carrying armored British vehicles up a road through Iraq's southern desert.

The British soldiers' families expressed worries Wednesday that the redeployment puts the troops in greater danger.

"It wasn't a cake walk in Basra but it's going to be a lot, lot more dangerous up there," said James Buchanan, 56, from Arbroath in central Scotland, who has two sons with the regiment in Iraq. "They're going to get one hell of a kicking this time," he said.