US to withdraw 34,000 troops from Afghanistan

Afghan Local Police personnel jump from their vehicle as they patrol in Nor Gal district Kunar province yesterday. The Afghan government welcomed President Barack Obama's announcement that the United States will withdraw 34,000 troops from the war-torn country over the next year. Photo: AFP

US President Barack Obama on Tuesday announced that 34,000 US troops will withdraw from Afghanistan in the next year and vowed the grueling, bloody US conflict there would end by late 2014.
"After a decade of grinding war, our brave men and women in uniform are coming home," Obama said in his State of the Union address, winning applause and a standing ovation from lawmakers.
The long-awaited move effectively halves the size of the current 66,000-strong US force in Afghanistan, as Nato troops prepare to hand over control for security operations to some 352,000 Afghan security forces.
With Afghan forces moving to assume control of security starting this spring, US and Nato-led forces will no longer be in charge of leading combat operations.
There were no immediate details of how quickly the drawdown would take place. But a senior Pentagon official told AFP earlier that it would be tied to the fighting season in Afghanistan, which runs into the fall.
The Afghan government welcomed President Barack Obama's announcement.
"We welcome this," defence ministry spokesman General Mohammad Zahir Azimi told AFP yesterday. "We will take all security responsibilities by the end of 2013.
However, the Taliban dismissed the troop pull-out as insufficient.
Nato, which has about 37,000 troops in Afghanistan, will also withdraw them in stages before the end of 2014.