There are some 100,000 US troops in Afghanistan. Ninety thousand of them are part of the 130,000-strong Nato-led ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) mission. The rest are assigned to Operation Enduring Freedom, which is dedicated to tracking down "high-value" al-Qaida and Taliban commanders. President Obama sent 30,000 of these troops as reinforcements last year, the Afghan "surge".
The drawdown of US troops will begin, as Obama promised, next month, and the withdrawal of all foreign combat troops is supposed to be completed in 2014. The question now is how steep that drawdown will be. Initial projections envisaged between 3,000 to 5,000 troops leaving in July. However, with the killing of Osama Bin Laden, growing doubts about the strategy, and the political pressures on Obama, there is now speculation that as many as 10,000 could be pulled out, with the entire 'surge' of 30,000 gone within a year.
The US commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, and the outgoing US defence secretary, Bob Gates, are fighting a rearguard action against a big pullout. Gates has said recently that if it was up to him, he would leave "the shooters" – the frontline combat troops – until last. The contrary point of view is that, given that there is general acceptance in Nato that the conflict can only be resolved politically, it makes little sense to prolong the 'surge' any longer.
Meanwhile, other major contributors are pulling out apace. The roughly 3,000 Canadians are due to leave Kandahar in a few weeks. Some 450 soldiers from the 9,500-strong British contingent will leave this summer, and British officers say the pace of UK withdrawal will not necessarily mirror the US pullout.
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