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.
Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan
During his last trip to Afghanistan U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel announced on 6 December 2014 the end of the U.S. original plan to withdraw its troops form Afghanistan. Under a plan announced in May 2014 the number of American troops was supposed to fall to 9,800 by 1 January 2015. Instead the U.S. will keep up to 10,800 troops for the first few months of 2015 and then restart the drawdown, which is scheduled to reach 5,500 troops by the end of 2015. Besides partaking in NATO's Resolute Support Mission consisting of 12,500 soldiers some U.S. troops will take part in a separate counterterrorism mission focused on al-Qaeda. By the time U.S. President Obama leaves office in 2017 only a small force attached to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul is to remain in Afghanistan. The reason for the United States to keep additional forces in the country temporarily was that planned troop commitments by US allies for the Nato train-and-assist mission starting in January 2015 have been slow to materialize. President Barack Obama "has provided US military commanders the flexibility to manage any temporary force shortfall that we might experience for a few months as we allow for coalition troops to arrive in theater," Hagel said in a news conference with President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul. "But the president's authorization will not change our troops' missions, or the long-term timeline for our drawdown," he added.