Senior officers of the South African defence force have condemned their own army's performance in Lesotho, on the day the first troops started withdrawing.

One general Lieutenant General Deon Ferreira told a parliamentary hearing that the first troops sent in to counter an army mutiny in September were not properly drilled or equipped to deal with the rioting that ensued.

Officers also said defence policy was unclear.

A spokeswoman for the South African army Colonel Laverne Machine told the BBC that fourteen hundred of the troops in Lesotho would be replaced over the next two days by six hundred trained peacekeepers, leaving two-thousand-seven hundred South African and Botswanan troops there.