Canada was to officially end its combat mission in Afghanistan on Thursday, July 7, after nine years of fighting which saw it lose 157 troops and spend more than $11 billion dollars.

With popular support for the war sapped at home, most of the nearly 3,000 Canadian soldiers, based mainly in the dangerous battleground of Kandahar, have packed up and gone home. A ceremony was due to be held at Kandahar airfield to mark the formal end of combat operations, although hundreds of troops will stay on in a training role, The Associated Press reported.

Canadian soldiers first deployed to Afghanistan in early 2002, several months after a U.S.-led invasion of the country to oust the Taliban in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

In recent weeks they have been completing their final patrols, packing up dusty outposts and gathering at the giant Kandahar airfield military base to debrief before starting to catch their flights home.

Britain is among other countries to have also announced partial troop withdrawals after nearly a decade of war, but the Canadians were the first major troop contributor to start sending forces home this year.

Earlier this week, Canada handed control of their last district to U.S. forces in a flag-lowering ceremony, a key symbolic step in the drawdown process, although the Americans had been in place for weeks.