KABUL — French President Francois Hollande for the first time provided details of his plan to pull France’s combat troops out of Afghanistan by year’s end, saying Friday he would leave about 1,400 soldiers behind to help with training and logistics.
The French leader, making good on one of the major foreign-policy promises of his campaign, confirmed in a one-day visit to Afghanistan that all of France’s 2,000 combat troops would be brought home by the end of this year — putting France on a fast-track exit timetable that sparked consternation among some allies at a NATO summit in Chicago this week.
“The time for Afghan sovereignty has come,” Hollande said during a meeting with French troops at a base in Kapisa province’s Nijrab district. “The terrorist threat that targeted our territory, while it hasn’t totally disappeared, is in part lessened.”
The French leader met with troops and discussed plans with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to withdraw French combat troops two years faster than NATO’s 2014 pullout schedule. France now has 3,400 troops and 150 gendarmes in Afghanistan.
The Associated Press
