WORLD BRIEFING / EL SALVADOR

The last Salvadoran troops are home from Iraq, ending Latin America’s military presence there.

Five Salvadoran soldiers were killed and 20 wounded during the country’s five-year deployment.

Defense Minister Jorge Alberto Molina and relatives greeted 200 soldiers at an army base outside the capital of San Salvador. They had been based near the southeastern Shiite Muslim city of Kut.

President Tony Saca had said El Salvador’s troops would leave after the Dec. 31 expiration of a United Nations resolution authorizing the international coalition in Iraq.

Saca’s conservative government was a staunch ally of the Bush administration. Salvadoran troops remained in Iraq years after Honduran, Dominican and Nicaraguan soldiers had left.