Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan
The draft agreement says that U.S. military and Defense Department civilian personnel are exempt from visa requirements and taxation. Afghan taxes and other fees will not be imposed on the entry or exit of goods specifically for the use of U.S. forces. An annex to the draft lists locations where Afghanistan agrees to provide facilities for U.S. forces, including Kabul; Bagram, north of the capital, where the United States has its largest current base; Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan; Herat in the west; Kandahar in the south; Shindand in Herat province; Sharab in Helmand province; Gardez, south of Kabul; and Jalalabad, to the east. The draft document gives the U.S. the right to deploy American forces on nine bases, including the two biggest, the airfields in Bagram and Kandahar. It also allows U.S. military planes to fly in and out of Afghanistan from seven air bases, including Kabul International Airport. U.S. forces would be permitted under the document to transport supplies from five border crossings, described along with the air bases as "official points of embarkation and debarkation." All bases in Afghanistan would revert to Afghan ownership and sovereignty after 2014, according to the draft.
Parwan Detention Facility
With the agreement signed on March 9, Afghanistan and the United States began a six-month transition from American to Afghan control of the Parwan Detention Facility north of Kabul and just outside Bagram, the largest US military base in the country. The US military handed control of the prison housing more than 3,000 Taliban fighters and terrorism suspects to the Afghan authorities in small ceremony on September 10, 2012, at which 16 prisoners, all wearing matching gray sweaters, were released. Army Col. Robert M. Taradash, who has overseen the prison, represented coalition forces. "We transferred more than 3,000 Afghan detainees into your custody ... and ensured that those who would threaten the partnership of Afghanistan and coalition forces will not return to the battlefield," said Col Robert Taradash, the only US official at the ceremony. "Our Afghan security forces are well trained and we are happy that today they are exercising their capability in taking the responsibility of prisoners independently and guarding the prisoners," said acting Defence Minister Enayatullah Nazari. "We are taking the responsibility from foreign forces." "Now, the Bagram prison is converted to one of Afghanistan's regular prisons where the innocents will be freed and the rest of the prisoners will be sentenced according to the laws of Afghanistan," a statement by Afghan President Hamid Karzai said, who didn't attend the ceremony. No one from the American Embassy or the State Department was present. Also top American commanders were absent on the ceremony. American officials say the transfer agreement calls for the Afghan government to continue to hold some detainees even if there is not a formal legal case against them, reviewing their cases administratively rather than judicially. The Americans say it is impossible to build legal cases against all prisoners arrested in battlefield conditions. Afghan news media reported that a dispute over this practice led to a falling-out between Karzai and General John R. Allen, the American military commander in Afghanistan, over the weekend and apparently prompted the downgraded American presence at the ceremony.