The United States will pull two Army divisions out of Germany as part of a major realignment of US forces across the world, senior defense officials said Monday.  

But the 1st Armored Division and the 1st Infantry Division, numbering about 30,000 troops, will return to the Untied States till 2006 at the earliest, the officials said.

The two divisions will be replaced by a brigade of 3,600 soldiers equipped with Stryker armored vehicles, which are lighter and quicker than the M1A1 Abrams tanks used by the two divisions. The 1st Infantry Division is now deployed in Iraq.

The officials said the United States intends to keep in Germany the US 5th Corps, which oversees the two divisions, two F-16 fighter wings at Spangdahlem, and its logistics hub at the Ramstein Air Base, as well as training venues.

The United States will close nearly half of its hundreds of installations in Europe as part of the massive restructuring plan, three officials said on condition of anonymity.

The changes, however, would not affect the 150,000 US troops deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

President George W. Bush announced the plans on Monday to withdraw 60,000 to 70,000 troops from bases in Europe and Asia over the next 10 years, as part of the global military realignment.

"The world has changed a great deal and our posture must change with it -- for the sake of our military families, for the sake of our taxpayers and so we can be more effective at projecting our strength and spreading freedom and peace," Bush told a conference of US Veterans of Foreign Wars in Cincinnati, Ohio.

(Xinhua News Agency August 17, 2004)