US plans full Afghan withdrawal by end of 2016

WASHINGTON: US forces will complete their withdrawal from Afghanistan by the end of 2016, 15 years after the September 11 attacks, President Barack Obama was to say Tuesday.

The United States invaded Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime in Kabul and to hunt its ally Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, author of the 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

The Taliban crumbled quickly in the face of a US-backed rebel offensive, but later regrouped to launch a bitter insurgency and draw the United States into its longest war.

The insurgents are still far from defeated, but Washington now wants to withdraw its troops from the battlefield and into a support role for Afghan government forces, and eventually to leave.

"We will only sustain a military presence after 2014 if the Afghan government signs the Bilateral Security Agreement," a senior administration official said ahead of Obama´s announcement.

"Assuming a BSA is signed, at the beginning of 2015, we will have 9,800 US service members in different parts of the country, together with our NATO allies and other partners," the official continued.

"By the end of 2015, we would reduce that presence by roughly half, consolidating US troops in Kabul and on Bagram Airfield.

"And one year later, by the end of 2016, we will draw down to a normal embassy presence with a security assistance office in Kabul, as we have done in Iraq."

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said Pakistan and Afghan military chiefs had expressed appreciation and relief at the decision to keep thousands of U.S. forces in the country in 2015 and into 2016, ending months of uncertainty.

"My Pakistani counterpart, the first words out his mouth was that he was deeply relieved. He too felt that the certainty was important, not only for Afghanistan but for the region," Dempsey said, referring to Pakistan's General Rashad Mahmood.