Cameron: Britain to Pull 500 Troops from Afghanistan

Britain will withdraw a further 500 troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year, but will keep soldiers in the country in a training role until at least 2023, Prime Minister David Cameron said Wednesday.

His confirmation that the second largest foreign contingent in Afghanistan will be reduced to 9,000 came a fortnight after President Barack Obama announced a big drawdown of U.S. forces.

Despite concerns expressed by U.S. and British military officers, Cameron said the withdrawal was possible because Afghanistan's fledgling army and police were increasingly confident as the West prepares to hand over security duties by 2015.

"Today I can announce that the UK will be able to reduce its force levels by a further 500 from 9,500 to 9,000 by the end of 2012," Cameron told the House of Commons.

The announcement comes a day after Cameron returned from a two-day visit to Afghanistan to meet British troops based in the troubled southern province of Helmand and to hold talks with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul.

He added: "This decision is not only right for Britain, it is right for Afghanistan too. It has given the Afghans a clear deadline against which to plan and has injected a sense of urgency into their efforts.

"Having taken such a huge share of the burden, and having performed so magnificently for a decade, the country needs to know that there is an end point to the level of our current commitment and to our combat operations," he said.

Britain has already announced the withdrawal of 426 auxiliary military personnel by February 2012.

But Cameron stressed that Britain's commitment to Afghanistan would endure after the last NATO combat troops leave the country at the end of 2014.

He said Britain would lead a Sandhurst-style military academy for Afghan army officers "for 10 years starting from 2013."

He announced the creation of the academy during a press conference with Karzai on Tuesday but without giving a timeline for the commitment.

Western governments are heading for the exit door in Afghanistan, with Obama saying this month he would withdraw 33,000 U.S. "surge" troops by the end of 2012, bringing total U.S. forces there down to 65,000.

Canada's combat mission in Afghanistan ends this week while France, Belgium and Spain have also said they will soon bring home some troops.

U.S. and British military commanders have expressed fears that bringing too many troops out too soon could hurt the delicate process of handing over security responsibilities to Afghan forces.

During the trip Cameron was forced to cancel a visit to Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand and one of the first towns due to be handed over to Afghan control, after a British soldier went missing from his base and was later found dead.

The mysterious death of 21-year-old Scott McLaren appeared to undermine Cameron's claim that security had improved enough for Britain to withdraw some troops soon.

McLaren was the 375th member of the British forces to die since the U.S.-led invasion in October 2001, which came after the Taliban regime refused to hand over al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Bin Laden died in a U.S. raid in Pakistan in May.

But Cameron insisted that Afghan forces were now ready to take on the baton after international forces had "driven al-Qaida from its bases" and "halted the momentum of the Taliban insurgency."

"In many places across the country the Afghan National Security Forces now stand ready to begin the process of taking over security responsibility," he told lawmakers.

In Kabul, Cameron made a plea to the Taliban to lay down their weapons and join the political process, and pointed to the example of Northern Ireland where erstwhile bitter foes now share power.