Afghan troops to take over by end-2014: US

They will take over even though only a small number of them now operate independently from NATO-led troops, a top US general said Wednesday.Lieutenant General Curtis Scaparrotti, deputy commander of US forces and the head of the NATO-led forces joint command, acknowledged that Afghan army and police still had a way to go before overseeing security without major assistance from foreign troops.But he rejected a more pessimistic view voiced by some in and outside the US military, including US Army Lieutenant Colonel Daniel Davis, who accused his superiors of glossing over the failings of Afghan forces in an article published this week.Some US soldiers in the field have been critical of their Afghan partners, Scaparrotti told a news conference, but the Afghan forces have been built up over a short period and could not be compared to a US standard.At times, a (US) private will tell me theyre not that good. But a privates looking at it from the perspective of how hes trained, or the Marines trained, and the standards are very different, the general said.I can tell you personally from experience and from feedback from others, these soldiers will fight, particularly at the company level. Theres no question about that, he said.And theyre going to be good enough, as we build them, to secure their country and to counter the insurgency that theyre dealing with now, he said.The state of Afghanistans security forces has taken on growing importance as the United States and its allies pursue a troop drawdown and after Washington announced last week it would shift from a combat to a training role as early as mid-2013.President Barack Obama was briefed on efforts to build capable Afghan security forces at a meeting on Wednesday that focused on Afghanistan, including efforts to broker a possible peace settlement with the insurgency, the White House said in a statement.--AFP