U.S. to keep troops in Afghanistan

With combat operations in Afghanistan ending this year, President Barack Obama announced he plans for almost 10,000 American troops to remain in the country in 2015 if the Afghan government signs a security agreement, CNN reported.

"We will bring America's longest war to a responsible end," Obama said in the White House Rose Garden in detailing the strategy to have virtually all U.S. forces out of Afghanistan by the end of 2016 -- shortly before his presidency ends.

The announcement offered something to proponents and opponents of a continued U.S. military engagement there after more than 12 years of war -- the longest in American history.

Obama called for 9,800 U.S. troops to stay in Afghanistan after the end of 2014, along with some allied forces. The number would get cut roughly in half by the end of 2015, and a year later -- less than a month before Obama leaves the White House -- the U.S. military presence would scale down to what officials described as a "normal" embassy security contingent.

A senior administration official told CNN that after 2016, the number of U.S. service members in Afghanistan providing embassy security and engaging in cooperative security efforts with the host government and military would likely number about 1,000.

Currently, the United States has 32,000 troops there. Maintaining any forces beyond the end of 2014 -- when Washington and its NATO allies will formally halt combat operations -- depends on Afghanistan signing the security agreement rejected by outgoing President Hamid Karzai, Obama said Tuesday.

Two candidates facing each other in next month's run-off election to choose Karzai's successor have indicated they will sign the security pact, Obama said.

"It's time to turn the page on more than a decade in which so much of our foreign policy was focused on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq," he declared.