Australian troops to leave Afghanistan early

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard announced on Tuesday her country will start
withdrawing troops from Afghanistan this year, and expects Australia’s combat role in the country to be completed by next year.

Gillard said she expected President Hamid Karzai to make an announcement on the transition in the coming months. Once this process began it would take 12 to 18 months to pull the troops out.

“We will no longer be conducting routine frontline operations with the Afghan national security forces,” Gillard said. “The Australian-led provincial reconstruction team will have completed its work [at the end of the transition period]. And the majority of our troops will have returned home.”

Australia currently has over 1500 troops in Afghanistan. Thirty-two Australian soldiers have been killed in the country and hundreds of others wounded.

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