WASHINGTON: In his year-end news conference, US President Barack Obama renewed his pledge to end the US combat mission in Afghanistan in less than two weeks.

On Friday afternoon, he also signed into law a bill that assures continued US support to Afghanistan after the withdrawal and includes a provision that extends the Coalition Support Fund for Pakistan for a year.

Both provisions are included in the massive, $584.2 billion bill defence spending for 2015, which the president signed into law on Friday evening.

Earlier Friday, President Obama assured the American nation in his yearend news conference that he would fulfil his pledge to end the US-led war in Afghanistan by the end of this year.

“And in less than two weeks, after more than 13 years, our combat mission in Afghanistan will be over,” he said.

“Today, more of our troops are home for the holidays than any time in over a decade.” While signing the defence bill, Mr Obama said he was doing so, despite reservations, because it will provide the critical financial support his administration needed to “respond to emerging needs in the face of evolving terrorist threats and emergent crises worldwide.”

In the same statement, he also expressed his disappointment with Congress’s refusal to allow him to close down the Guantanamo Bay US military prison camp in Cuba.

Earlier this month, the US Department of Defence transferred the last remaining third-country nationals held in US custody in Afghanistan, ending America’s detention operations in Afghanistan. But the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, remains open for the 13th consecutive year.

The facility was “costing the American people hundreds of millions of dollars each year and undermining America’s standing in the world,” said Mr Obama, who vowed to close down the facility in his election campaign six years ago.

“The continued operation of this detention facility weakens our national security by draining resources, damaging our relationships with key allies and partners, and emboldening violent extremists,” he said. “Closing the detention facility is a national imperative.”

Mr Obama has repeatedly urged the Congress to work with his Administration to close the prison but the lawmakers have thwarted all his efforts to do so.

Section 1032 of the 2015 defence act also renews the bar against using appropriated funds to construct or modify any facility in the United States, its territories, or possessions to house any Guantanamo detainee in the custody or under the control of the Department of Defence unless authorised by the Congress.

Section 1033 renews the bar against using appropriated funds to transfer Guantanamo detainees into the United States for any purpose.

“I have consistently opposed these restrictions and will continue to work with the Congress to remove them,” Mr Obama said.

More than 80 percent of detainees at held at the Guantanamo Bay prison have now been transferred to other facilities.

“The Guantanamo detention facility’s continued operation undermines our national security. We must close it,” said Mr Obama, urging lawmakers to work with his administration to “bring this chapter of American history to a close.”

Published in Dawn, December 21st, 2014