NASSIRIYA, Iraq, June 1 (Reuters) - About 500 Australian combat troops began pulling out of their base in southern Iraq on Sunday, fulfilling an election promise by Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to bring the soldiers home this year.

A British military spokesman in the southern city of Basra said the pullout from Talil base in Nassiriya was under way, but a spokesman for the governor of Dhi Qar province said it had been completed, with U.S. forces replacing the Australians.

(Reporting by Haider al-Nasrallah in Nassiriya and Ross Colvin in Baghdad, editing by Adrian Croft)

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