Bagram Airfield
Bagram Airfield or BAF also known as Bagram Air Base is the largest U.S. military base in Afghanistan. It is located next to the ancient city of Bagram, southeast of Charikar in the Parwan Province of Afghanistan. It has a dual runway capable of handling any size military aircraft, including Lockheed Martin C-5 Galaxy and Antonov An-225. Bagram Air Base is occupied by the Afghan Armed Forces and the US-led Resolute Support Mission.
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.