U.S. troops to leave Korea zone

SEOUL, South Korea - The United States will pull nearly all its troops from their last frontline positions along the tense frontier with communist North Korea by October as part of a force reshuffle on the divided Korean peninsula, the United Nations Command said Tuesday.

Duties along the heavily fortified buffer, called the Demilitarized Zone, will be handed over to South Korea, which has 600,000 troops staring off against North Korea's 1.1-million member military, the world's fifth largest.

U.S. Gen. Leon J. LaPorte, joint commander of the U.S. Forces Korea and the U.N. Command, told Congress last month the changes were meant to give South Korea a greater role in defending itself. Tuesday's announcement was the first outlining details of the pullout.

North and South Korea are separated by the 21/2-mile wide, 151-mile long DMZ, a Cold War vestige strewn with mines and laced with barbed wire and tank traps.

U.S. troops guarding the border are often regarded as a "trip wire" because it is presumed they would take casualties during a North Korean attack, thereby prompting U.S. intervention.

There are about 600 South Korean and U.S. troops in the area now, the South Korean Defense Ministry said. South Koreans account for about 70 percent of the force, but that figure will jump to 93 percent after the Oct. 31 handover.

On Sunday, North Korea condemned a reduction of U.S. forces along the DMZ as preparation for a pre-emptive attack against the country. The North sometimes argues that a pullout signals an attack, because it would reduce the risk of immediate U.S. casualties along the border fighting zone.

The United States is reviewing its military posture in South Korea as part of a global realignment to make its forces more nimble and technology driven.

The U.S. command has not announced any changes in overall troop strength on the peninsula.

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