US signals 2013 end to Afghan mission
Defence secretary Leon Panetta says the United States intends to end combat operations in Afghanistan before the end of 2013, laying down a new marker for winding down America's longest war.
The timetable described by Mr Panetta appears to be the first time the US has said it would shift into a supporting role, training and advising Afghan troops, by next year.
His remarks come as allies like France appear to be looking to exit Afghanistan and US president Barack Obama is eager to show voters that American involvement is ending.
"Our goal is to complete all of that transition in 2013 and then hopefully by mid to the latter part of 2013 we'll be able to make a transition from a combat role to a training, advise-and-assist role," Mr Panetta said.
His comments came days after French president Nicolas Sarkozy, who is facing a difficult re-election campaign, announced he would pull troops out of Afghanistan by the end of next year.
Four French soldiers were killed last month by a rogue Afghan soldier.
Mr Sarkozy also urged other NATO members to do the same, threatening to upend a well-settled strategy approved at a summit in Lisbon two years ago that calls for the transition to Afghan security leadership by the end of 2014.
It remains to be seen how the new US timetable for ending combat operations will affect the calculations of Taliban insurgents, who have been fighting a bloody guerrilla war against NATO forces.
Strategy
The US has been trying to draw the Taliban into reconciliation talks with the Afghan government of president Hamid Karzai.
But a key part of its strategy has been to increase military pressure on the Taliban to persuade it to join peace talks.
In a new classified report obtained by British media, NATO said the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, remained confident despite a decade of NATO efforts that it would retake control of Afghanistan.
Mr Panetta portrayed the new timetable for ending US combat operations in mid to late 2013 as an implementation of previous NATO strategy agreed to at Lisbon.
"In the Lisbon discussions, it was always clear that there would come a point which we would make that transition and then be able to hopefully consolidate those gains in 2014," he said.
"So the bottom line is no, this isn't a new strategy. It's basically implementing what Lisbon is all about."
A quicker end to US combat in Afghanistan could give Mr Obama an election-year lift, allowing him to point to a plan for ending the war.
As of January 1, 889 US soldiers had been killed in a conflict that was launched after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US.
US forces number about 90,000 among the 130,000-strong NATO-led force.
http://abc.com.au/news/2012-02-02/us-to-end-afghanistan-combat-operations-in-201...
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