WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama said on Tuesday that he plans to withdraw all combat troops from Afghanistan by the end of 2016.

“At the beginning of 2015, we will have approximately 9,800 US service members in different parts of the country, together with our Nato allies and other partners,” the president said in a statement he read to his nation from the White House Rose Garden.

“By the end of 2015, we will have reduced that presence by roughly half, and we will have consolidated our troops in Kabul and on Bagram Airfield,” he said.

“One year later, by the end of 2016, our military will draw down to a normal embassy presence in Kabul, with a security assistance component, just as we’ve done in Iraq.”

The troops that stay in Afghanistan between 2014 and 16 will only have a limited mission.

“I’ve made it clear that we’re open to cooperating with Afghans on two narrow missions after 2014: training Afghan forces and supporting counter-terrorism operations against the remnants of Al Qaeda.”

Even this will only be possible if the Afghan government signs a Bilateral Security Agreement (BSA) with the United States, providing a legal cover to US troops stationed there after 2014.

“We will only sustain this military presence after 2014 if the Afghan government signs the Bilateral Security Agreement that our two governments have already negotiated,” he said.

“This agreement is essential to give our troops the authorities they need to fulfil their mission, while respecting Afghan sovereignty.”

Mr Obama made a surprise visit to Bagram on Sunday where he consulted his ambassador and senior military commanders before returning to Washington on the Veterans Day on Monday.

In an address to his troops near Washington on Monday, President Obama announced that “by the end of this year, our war in Afghanistan will finally come to end”. “The bottom line is that it’s time to turn the page on more than a decade when so much of our foreign policy was focused on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,” he said.

His new strategy, Mr Obama claimed, would not only allow him to bring his troops home but will also allow the US to “redirect some of the resources saved by ending these two wars to respond more nimbly to the changing threat of terrorism, while addressing a broader set of priorities around the globe.”

President Obama said that starting next year, Afghans would be fully responsible for securing their country. “American personnel will be in an advisory role. We will no longer patrol Afghan cities or towns, mountains or valleys. That is a task for the Afghan people.”

The US president acknowledged that the Americans had learned that it’s harder to end wars than it is to begin them.“Yet this is how wars end in the 21st century – not through signing ceremonies, but through decisive blows against our adversaries, transitions to elected governments, security forces who take the lead and ultimately full responsibility.”

The drawdown, however, does not end America’s commitment to Afghanistan. “We remain committed to a sovereign, secure, stable, and unified Afghanistan.”

Mr Obama said that on Wednesday he would go to the West Point military academy near New York and speak to America’s newest class of military officers to “discuss how Afghanistan fits into our broader strategy going forward”.

He said he was confident that “if we carry out this approach, we can not only responsibly end our war in Afghanistan and achieve the objectives that took us to war in the first place, we’ll also be able to begin a new chapter in the story of American leadership around the world.”

Published in Dawn, May 28th, 2014