Afghan leader: NATO should pull back to big bases

[March 15, 2012]  KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- The Afghan president said Thursday that international troops should pull back from rural areas and villages to main bases and that Afghan troops should take the lead for countrywide security in 2013, a year ahead of the current target date.

Karzai's statement, issued after he met with U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in the capital, comes in the wake of an alleged shooting spree by a rogue U.S. soldier who is accused of murdering 16 Afghan villagers Sunday before dawn.

"Afghan security forces have the ability to keep the security in rural areas and in villages on their own," Karzai said in the statement. He made the same comments to Panetta in their meeting, it said.

Karzai told Panetta that the weekend shootings in southern Afghanistan were cruel and that everything must be done to prevent any such incidents in the future. As part of this, the international forces should speed up their transfer of authority to Afghan troops, he said.

President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron said in Washington on Wednesday that they and their NATO allies were committed to shifting to a support role in Afghanistan in 2013.

Obama gave his fullest endorsement yet for the mission shift, but he said the overall plan to gradually withdraw forces and hand over security in Afghanistan will stand.

In January, after French President Nicolas Sarkozy suggested that foreign forces speed up their timetable for handing combat operations to Afghan forces in 2013, Karzai said he would be in favor of that -- if it were achievable.

"We hope to finish the transition -- to complete this transition of authority to the Afghan forces, to the Afghan government, by the end of 2013 at the earliest -- or by the latest as has been agreed upon -- by the end of 2014," Karzai said at the time.

[Associated Press; By AMIR SHAH and SEBASTIAN ABBOT]

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