Obama and Cameron vow Afghan exit plan stands

Leaders of the US and Britain have outlined plans to shift the Nato war effort in Afghanistan towards a back-seat advisory role while Afghan forces increasingly take the lead, but stressed that the two nations remain committed to the mission there.

President Barack Obama gave his fullest endorsement yet for the mission shift, but said the overall plan to gradually withdraw forces and hand over security will stand.

Obama said he anticipates no “sudden, immediate changes to the plan we already have”, for bringing forces home.

Obama was speaking about improved security in Afghanistan just as a man drove an apparently stolen vehicle onto the ramp area of a British airfield in southern Afghanistan and into a ditch, where it exploded in flames, at the same time US defence secretary Leon Panetta’s aircraft was landing.

The US and Britain have the largest fighting forces in Afghanistan, where the combat is in its 11th year. They and other Nato nations have already agreed to keep forces in the country through 2014, when Afghan president Hamid Karzai will leave office.

“At the upcoming Nato summit in my hometown of Chicago, we’ll determine the next phase of transition,” Obama said following a meeting at the White House with David Cameron, the British prime minister.

“This includes shifting to a support role next year in 2013 in advance of Afghans taking full responsibility for security in 2014. We’re going to complete this mission and we’re going to do it responsibly.”

Obama acknowledged the drop in public support for the war. “People get weary” after long wars, the president said, adding that he thinks most people in both the US and Britain understand the reasons for continuing with the campaign.

“The situation is considerably improved,” said Cameron, and the goal of keeping Afghanistan from again becoming a terrorist haven is achievable by the end of 2014.

The Obama-Cameron meeting came in advance of May’s Nato summit in Chicago, where a decision on the timetable for withdrawal from Afghanistan is expected to be confirmed.

The White House discussions follow the weekend killings of 16 Afghan civilians, allegedly by a lone US soldier, and the deaths of six British troops last week in a roadside bomb blast — the largest loss of life in a single incident for British forces in Afghanistan since 2006.

Meanwhile, authorities said an Afghan man drove the vehicle which exploded on the airfield just as Panetta’s aircraft was landing.

Meanwhile, the US soldier accused of killings 16 Afghan civilians on a shooting spree has been flown out of the country, a US military official said.

The official said that the soldier has been flown to a “pre-trial confinement facility” in another country but did not provide further details.

The official did not provide a reason for the move, saying only that the decision had been made to continue legal proceedings outside of Afghanistan.