UK hands over violent Afghan district to U.S. troops

LONDON (Reuters) - British troops have handed over responsibility for one of the deadliest districts in southern Afghanistan to American forces, Britain's defense ministry said on Monday.

Sangin, in southern Helmand province, accounted for almost a third of the British dead in the nine-year old war. The roughly 1,000 British troops in Sangin are to redeploy to central Helmand.

"The handover of Sangin by UK forces represents sound military rationale and reflects the increase of both (international) and Afghan forces across Helmand over the course of the past year," Defense Secretary Liam Fox said in a statement.

Some 337 British troops have been killed in Afghanistan according to website www.icasualties.org. There are currently about 9,500 British troops in Afghanistan.

The handover was announced earlier this year, and the Ministry of Defense said the move was an effort to rebalance foreign forces in Afghanistan more equally amongst the local population as more U.S. troops pour in.

Recent months have been the deadliest for the 150,000 NATO-led, U.S.-dominated, foreign troops in the country fighting an al Qaeda-allied Taliban insurgency, and pressure is growing for them to be withdrawn.

(Reporting by Mohammed Abbas: Editing by Matthew Jones)