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LONDON (Reuters) - Britain may cut its force in Iraq by half by the middle of next year after handing over security responsibility for the south to Iraqis within nine months, a senior British commander said on Tuesday.

The commander said Britain would leave "quite a significantly smaller force than we've got now, but probably in the region of 3,000 to 4,000 people based in a single location".

He was speaking at a briefing arranged by the Defence Ministry on condition that he not be identified.

Britain handed over responsibility for one of the southern provinces it controls to Iraqi forces in July and the commander said it hoped to hand over a second province next month.

Most of Britain's 7,000 troops in Iraq are based in the second city of Basra, where the commander said a transition to Iraqi control could take place in the first quarter of 2007.

"These are all conditions-based, subject to a variety of factors, but in terms of the tactical plan and the competence of the Iraqi army, it is perfectly feasible," the officer said.

He said the first one thousand British troops could start returning home in the next four to six months, in part representing forces being drawn down from Maysan province, where Britain has already begun moving out of its main base.

The 3,000 to 4,000-strong British force would remain in the Basra area after the handover "to protect our investment" in security in the mainly-Shi'ite south and show support for U.S. troops still facing security problems in other areas, he added.

"We anticipate there is not going to be a political appetite to saying 'all right, we're done' while there is still unfinished business in the centre of the country," he said.

Britain has maintained a force of between 7,000 and 8,000 troops in southern Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The south has been far more peaceful than Sunni-dominated and ethnically mixed provinces in the centre of the country.

However, Basra has seen a surge in violence in the past year, which British officials blame on rival Shi'ite factions battling for control of the city, at the heart of one of Iraq's main oil-producing regions.

British troops in Maysan province's capital Amara came under heavy fire on Tuesday after raiding a house in a hunt for a "terrorist of national significance", a military spokesman said.

Troops backed by tanks and armoured vehicles returned fire and drove off after arresting six suspects, five of whom were later freed. No British troops were hurt, the spokesman, Major Charlie Burbridge, said.

The British commander said the main security concerns in the south were local militia, such as offshoots of the Jaish al-Mehdi -- the Mehdi Army -- of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.

"The mainstream Jaish al-Mehdi are not a particular worry, but there are rogue elements, some of them rather alarmingly close to government structures."