Troops' reduction not to affect US commitment toward Afghanistan - military
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-12-26 16:52

The decision of the United States to lower the level of its forces in Afghanistan would not affect its pledge towards rebuilding the post-conflict nation, spokesman of the U.S. military said Monday.

"This does not represent a reduction in the U.S. commitment to Afghanistan. A significant part of our effort is training and equipping the Afghan National Army (ANA) which now has more than 30,000 soldiers and the Afghan National Police which has about 55, 000 officers today," U.S. military spokesman Laurent Fox told reporters.

The spokesman made the remarks days after the Pentagon announced to reduce the strength of its troops from 19,500 to 16, 500 next year.

Over 20,000-strong U.S.-led coalition forces have been battling a Taliban-linked increasing insurgency mostly in the southern mountainous region, the birthplace of hard-line militants' movement.

Meantime, the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force would boost its strength from 9,000 currently to 15,000 next year.

The militants, whose regime was ousted by a U.S.-led invasion in late 2001, have vowed to oust the President Hamid Karzai-led administration and evict the U.S.-dominated foreign troops by Jihad or holy war from the war-torn central Asian state.

Taliban-linked militancy has claimed the lives of over 1,500 with majority of them militants since the beginning of the out- going year.