The Afghan National Security Forces have taken the lead for security across the country on Tuesday with President Hamid Karzai's announcement of the fifth and final group of Afghan provinces, cities and districts to undergo security transition in the coming months.
"You are the sons and guardians of this country and it is your responsibility to protect it," Karzai said at a ceremony at the new Afghan National Defense University in Qargha on the outskirts of national capital Kabul.
He ruled out anymore air strikes targeting Afghan homes and villages.
"This is a day for Afghans to be proud. And I am proud to stand with you," said NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who attended the ceremony. He outlined the progress made: "Ten years ago, there were no Afghan National Security Forces. Five years ago, Afghan forces were a fraction of what they are today. Now you have 350,000 Afghan troops and police. A formidable forces. And time and again, we have seen them dealing quickly and competently with complex attacks."
Senior officials from the Afghan government, the international community and ISAF troop contributing nations attended the ceremony. Afghan soldiers and veterans, as well as young cadets from the Afghan security forces and ISAF also participated in the event.
With this decision, Afghan security forces will take the lead for security across the country, while the role of ISAF forces shifts from a combat to a support one. The ceremony marked an important milestone in the transition process agreed by the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and President Karzai at the 2010 Lisbon Summit. According to the agreed roadmap, Afghan security forces are to take on full security responsibility of their country by the end of 2014.
The transition process officially started on March 22, 2011 with the announcement of the first group of provinces, districts and cities to be handed over to Afghan security leadership. With the announcement of Tranche 5, Afghanistan is entering the final phase of security transition. It involves 95 districts, half of which are Taliban strongholds in Kandahar, Nangarhar, Khost and Paktika provinces, along the Pakistan border.
This is for the first time since the Taliban regime was ousted from power in 2001 that the coalition forces are giving to their local counterparts independent charge of security for the whole of Afghanistan. However, there are wide concerns about the ability of Afghan forces to counter Taliban insurgency without the same level of foreign military assistance.
The Taliban carried out two high-profile attacks in the capital on successive days last week targeting the Afghan Supreme Court and a building near the Kabul airport.
According to ICasualties.org, an independent website that monitors international troop casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan, the 12-year-old U.S.-led efforts to root out terrorism from the war-torn South-West Asian country has so far cost NATO and allied nations the lives of 3,336 soldiers, mostly Americans.
There are currently about 66,000 U.S. forces, the mainstay of the ISAF, in Afghanistan, but their strength is expected to be halved by year-end, and slimmed further next year.
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