Defence secretary Leon Panetta says shift from fighting to training being brought forward by a year or more
The US plans to wind down its war in Afghanistan a year or more earlier than scheduled by ending its combat role in the second half of 2013.
Defence secretary Leon Panetta said no decision has been made on how quickly to draw down American and other Nato forces, but that the shift away from fighting is being brought forward. At the same time, Nato is considering reducing the planned size of the Afghan army because of the cost involved.
"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," Panetta said on his way to Brussels for a Nato meeting about Afghanistan. "It's still a pretty robust role that we'll be engaged in. It's not going to be a kind of formal combat role that we are [in] now."
The US has about 90,000 soldiers in Afghanistan. Nearly one quarter of the contingent is due to be pulled out by the autumn. The rest were to have been withdrawn by the end of 2014.
Panetta said some Nato forces will remain in Afghanistan until then but in what Washington calls a training and support role.
"We're committed to an enduring presence there," he said.
Panetta drew parallels with the US pullout from Iraq, where American forces pulled back to a series of large bases while most of the fighting was done by the Iraqi army.
It is not clear what has prompted Washington to bring forward the deadline to end combat missions but it has been under pressure from some Nato allies to wind down the mission sooner.
Last week, the French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, said that Paris will move more quickly to withdraw its troops after four French soldiers were killed by an Afghan soldier. The announcement caught the US off guard.
Other European governments, keen to cut defence costs because of the financial crisis, are also under pressure to wind down their involvement.
Panetta said that the Nato talks this week will include discussion on reducing the planned size of the Afghan army from 350,000 soldiers because of the expense, currently running at about $6bn a year.
"One of the things we'll be discussing [in Brussels] is what the size of that [Afghan] force should be, but a lot of that will be dependent on the funds that are going to be put on the table in order to sustain that force," he said.
Panetta said Nato countries will press Arab governments as well as Japan to contribute to the cost of maintaining the Afghan security forces.
The reconsideration of the US role comes as Washington puts out feelers to the Taliban. Panetta's comments also follow the revelation that a secret US military report says the Taliban, heavily backed by Pakistan, is confident of winning the war in Afghanistan.
The report, The State of the Taliban 2012, was drawn up by a US special operations task force on the basis of interrogations with 4,000 suspected Taliban and al-Qaida detainees.
Its conclusions – that the Taliban remains a force to be reckoned with and has strong morale – fly in the face of Nato's assertions that the insurgent movement is on the back foot militarily.