Panetta : strategic defeat of Al-Qaeda "within reach"

Leon Panetta The first American soldiers of about 10,000 due to leave Afghanistan this year have flown home, military officials said Friday, kicking off a gradual drawdown due to be completed in 2014. US President Barack Obama in June announced that 33,000 American troops would leave Afghanistan by the end of next summer, leaving behind 65,000 and effectively ending a military surge ordered into the country late 2009.
Around 650 US army troops deployed northwest of the capital in the province of Parwan flew out on Wednesday and will not be replaced by an incoming unit, the US military confirmed Friday.
"It's correct that these soldiers are the first to redeploy from Afghanistan without being replaced by a new rotation of soldiers since the president's announcement," said US army press officer Major Michael Wunn.
US officers have said that a total of about 800 soldiers in two Army units will depart this month.
The speed of the drawdown has been heavily criticised in Washington -- liberals wanted more, Republican hawks complained it was too fast and top Pentagon officials felt snubbed for having much of their advice overruled.
The troops who left Wednesday were from the Iowa National Guard's 1st Squadron, 113rd Cavalry Regiment and their duties will be taken on by others already in the country.
Another contingent of military trainers from 1st Squadron, 134th Cavalry Regiment who had been working in Kabul will leave later this month and their job given to Afghan security forces, the military said.
"These units were always scheduled to return home at this time. However, it wasn't until late last month that they found out they wouldn't be replaced by incoming units," said Wunn.
US officers have said that with no major troop withdrawals until the last months of the year, US commanders will have virtually the entire surge force on the ground through the summer fighting season.
There are currently around 150,000 US-led foreign troops on the ground in Afghanistan, including about 99,000 Americans.
A Marine unit fighting insurgents in the southern Helmand province, the 3rd battalion of the 4th Marine Regiment, will be pulling out between November and December, a Marine spokesman told AFP.
Both the top US commander in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, and Admiral Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have said Obama's withdrawal plan was more "aggressive" than they had recommended.
Yet voters at home are tiring of the nearly decade-long war in Afghanistan and the ballooning costs of the conflict have become an increasingly controversial in Western capitals battling with the fallout of recession.
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said last week that his focus was on handing over security responsibility to Afghan forces by the end of 2014, visiting Afghanistan for the first time since taking up his new job.
Nevertheless, there is huge scepticism over the ability of Afghan army and police to take responsibility for warding off the Taliban-led insurgency amid widespread illiteracy and attrition among the ranks.
Panetta acknowledged that there remained "a lot more work to do in terms of being able to transition the responsibility to them".
He declared the strategic defeat of Al-Qaeda "within reach".