2014, Afghan Troop Withdrawal | featured news

A German official is saying Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has told NATO allies that the U.S. will leave between 8,000-12,000 American troops in Afghanistan after 2014, when combat ends.

President Barack Obama will announce in his State of the Union address on Tuesday that 34,000 troops will return from Afghanistan by early 2014, a source familiar with the speech told Reuters.

Afghanistan will hold its next presidential election on April 5, 2014, the Election Commission announced on Wednesday. President Hamid Karzai, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term, had denied speculation that security problems and the exit of foreign troops that year would delay the poll.

The U.S. designation Saturday of Afghanistan as its newest "major non-NATO ally" amounts to a political statement of support for the country's long-term stability and solidifies close defense cooperation after American combat troops withdraw in 2014....

Afghan and U.S. officials said Sunday they had agreed to the broad outlines of an accord governing the long-term American presence in Afghanistan after the Western combat role ends in 2014. The heads of the two countries' negotiating teams, Afghanistan's national security advisor Rangin Spanta and U.S. Ambassador Ryan C. Crocker, initialed a draft of the "strategic partnership agreement" that the two sides have said they plan to finalize prior to a landmark NATO summit in Chicago next month. That gathering is expected to provide a blueprint for the final phase of the decade-long war in Afghanistan.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Thursday said he was considering bringing forward by a year the presidential election set for 2014 to reduce the pressure on the conflict-plagued country during the period when majority of NATO coalition troops are scheduled to withdraw.

NATO is ready to begin turning security over to Afghan forces next year, U.S. leaders said on Friday, as the first step in a plan to withdraw almost all foreign troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.