Baghdad - The British military will hand over its base in the southern Iraqi city of Basra to US forces on Tuesday, local media reported. Control of the base near Basra's airport will officially pass from the British to the US military in a ceremony on Tuesday, Baghdad's Voices of Iraq news agency reported on Monday, citing "a high-level official" at the Basra airport.

Iraq and Great Britain signed a deal last year whereby some 4,100 British troops will remain in Iraq to train the Iraqi army before British forces withdraw completely in July 2009.

After the United States, Britain sent the most soldiers to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

British troops transferred the responsibility of operating Basra's civilian airport to Iraqi authorities on January 1, but the British military retained control of the military base next to the airport. Control of that base will now pass to the US military.

Though calm has largely returned to Basra, the base has frequently been the target of rocket attacks.

In the north of the country, fighting continued around Mosul, 400 kilometres north Baghdad, police said on Monday.

Two Iraqis were killed and another five were wounded in two separate attacks in and near Mosul, police told the German Press Agency dpa.

One Iraqi policeman was killed and four people were wounded when a bomb exploded as a police patrol passed through western Mosul's al-Yarmuk district on Monday.

Not long after, unidentified gunmen fatally shot the director of Mosul's Office of Immigrant Affairs north of the city and injured his assistant, police said.

Mosul, the capital of Iraq's Nineveh province, remains among the most dangerous cities in Iraq. Iraqi forces, backed by US troops, have been waging an intensified campaign to arrest insurgents holed up in the city, but insurgents have responded with near-daily, deadly attacks.