U.S., NATO plan handoff of combat lead to Afghans

BRUSSELS — The United States and its NATO allies are readying plans to pull away from the front lines in Afghanistan next year as President Obama and fellow leaders try to show that the unpopular war is ending.

NATO allies insisted they are not pulling the plug early on the Afghanistan war, as top military and diplomatic officials from the U.S. and NATO allies met Wednesday.

The allies are finalizing a plan to shift primary responsibility for combat to Afghan forces and firming up a strategy for world support to the weak Afghan government and fledgling military after 2014.

That year is the deadline for the NATO-led war to end, although it is clear that many nations will have long since stopped any active front-line combat and some will have pulled out completely.

At the same time, the nations that have prosecuted the 10-year war against a Taliban-led insurgency are reassuring nervous Afghans they will not be left to fend for themselves.

“There is no change whatsoever in the timeline,” NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen insisted Wednesday.

The messages aimed at different audiences are both challenged by current events in Afghanistan, where insurgents staged a coordinated attack last weekend that struck at the heart of the U.S.-backed government and international enclave in Kabul.

Meanwhile, Taliban leaders are boycotting peace talks that the U.S. sees as key to a safe exit.

Mr. Fogh Rasmussen said the alliance expects a bill of about $4 billion annually to sustain the Afghan fighting forces after international troops leave, which he called a “good deal” since it is cheaper than the cost of war.

But it is not clear whether several European governments have the budget or the will to keep paying.

A major NATO summit in Chicago next month is expected to include a broad commitment to long-term support for the Afghan forces but no specific pledges.

The United States expects to pay much of the cost, but U.S. officials say Washington cannot foot the bill alone. The United States wants nations outside NATO, such as China and Russia, to chip in, arguing that everyone has a stake in ensuring that Afghanistan does not slide into chaos.

The United States acknowledges that, despite progress, the U.S. is not meeting its goal of drawing $1.3 billion annually from other nations to fund the Afghan armed forces.

This week’s sessions are meant to stitch together U.S. and NATO agreements on the pace of U.S. and allied combat withdrawal next year. U.S. and Afghan officials already have said they expect to shift the lead in combat operations to the Afghan militaryby the middle of 2013, although the U.S. stresses that it will still have a large number of forces in Afghanistan as backup.

Afghan Defense Ministry spokesman Gen. Mohammad Zahir Azimi said Wednesday that the Afghans are on track to take the lead in securing the country by the end of 2013.

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