Afghan Troop Withdrawal | featured news

British Prime Minister David Cameron, on an unannounced visit to Afghanistan, said on Tuesday he was confident British troops could start leaving early next year when a gradual transition to Afghan forces begins.

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.

Gen. David Petraeus will not say whether U.S. troops will begin to pull out of Afghanistan next summer as President Obama pledged last year, saying any drawdown will be conditions based.

As few as "a couple of thousand" U.S. troops may leave Afghanistan in the first phase of withdrawing forces from there beginning a year from now, Vice President Joe Biden said in an interview broadcast Sunday.

The general told a Senate panel that a 2011 deadline for the start of troop withdrawals was just “the beginning of a process.”