Hagel: Additional 1,000 U.S. Troops to Stay in Afghanistan

An additional 1,000 U.S. troops will remain in Afghanistan next year to meet a temporary shortfall in NATO forces, U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Saturday during a visit to Kabul.

President Barack Obama approved the move despite an earlier plan to limit the U.S. force to a maximum of 9,800 troops in 2015.

A protracted Afghan election delayed the signing of security deals with the United States and NATO countries, which set back plans for Western governments to contribute troops to the post-2014 mission, named "Operation Resolute Support", Hagel said.

"The force generation effort for 'Resolute Support' is several months behind where we hoped it would be at this time," Hagel told reporters.

"As a result, President Obama has provided U.S. military commanders the flexibility to manage any temporary force shortfalls that we might experience for a few months as we allow for coalition troops to arrive in theatre."

"This will mean the delayed withdrawal of up to 1,000 U.S. troops -- so that up to 10,800 troops, rather than 9,800, could remain in Afghanistan through the end of this year, and for the first few months of next year."

Concern is growing for Afghan stability as the NATO military presence declines, with the national army and police enduring record casualties in battle this year and following a series of high-profile Taliban attacks in Kabul.

Hagel said Obama's decision did not change the mission for the troops next year -- which will focus on training Afghan forces -- nor did it alter a long-term deadline for a U.S. troop drawdown over the next two years.

The Pentagon chief added U.S. forces would maintain "a limited counter-terrorism mission" against Al-Qaeda militants in Afghanistan.

Washington was "committed to preventing Al-Qaeda from using Afghanistan as a safe haven to threaten the United States," he said.

Hagel, who is shortly to step down from office, spoke alongside President Ashraf Ghani after holding talks with the new leader who took office in September.

- Progress at risk? -

Insurgents have targeted foreign guest houses, embassy vehicles, U.S. troops, Afghan army buses and a female member of parliament in Kabul in recent weeks.

"The recent wave of Taliban attacks has made clear that the international community must not waver in its support for a stable, secure, and prosperous Afghanistan," Hagel said.

About 130,000 NATO troops were fighting in Afghanistan in 2010 at the peak of the foreign intervention, after the 2001 fall of the Taliban regime that sheltered Al-Qaeda.

The follow-up NATO force is will be 12,500-strong next year.

Hagel said Afghanistan had "come a long way" over the past decade and that a newly-elected government and its army were ready to take charge of security.

"As difficult, as challenging, as long as this has been -- by any definition, the country of Afghanistan, the people of Afghanistan are far better off today than they were 13 years ago," Hagel told reporters on his plane.

"They have the ability to decide their own fate, their own way, on their terms. They're not completely there yet. But they've come a long way," he said.

The advances had come as a result of the "blood and treasure" spent by American, allied and Afghan troops, he added.

After a prolonged crisis over a fraud-mired election, President Ghani came to power after signing a power-sharing deal with his poll rival Abdullah Abdullah.

The "national unity government" has struggled with negotiations over government positions, with no new ministers named more than two months after Ghani's inauguration in late September.

Afghan soldiers and police have suffered soaring casualties, with more than 4,600 killed in the first 10 months of this year.

Obama on Friday named Ashton Carter, a technocrat and academic with long experience working in the Pentagon, to replace Hagel as defense secretary.

Hagel, who took office in February 2013, resigned last month, rejecting accounts that he was forced out and saying it was a mutual agreement with the U.S. president.