US forces to stay longer on Afghan soil

US Vice President Joe Biden says Washington will not withdraw its troops from Afghanistan in 2014, if Kabul does not want it to do so.

“We’re not leaving if you (Afghans) don’t want us to leave,” Biden said in Kabul on Tuesday.

He made the remarks after talks with Afghan president Hamid Karzai on the transition process on the second day of his surprise visit to Afghanistan.

“And the process to be able at the same time, to disrupt and dismantle, defeat, eliminate al-Qaeda in Pakistan and what little appearance there is in Afghanistan.”

Washington is scheduled to hand over security responsibility to Afghan forces in 2014.

Now, Biden says the US will stand ready to help Afghans in the responsibility even after the scheduled withdrawal date.

The remarks come days after Senator Lindsay Graham of South Carolina suggested the setting up of permanent air bases in Afghanistan.

In 2001, the US and its allies invaded Afghanistan to wipe out terrorism. However, the US-led occupation of the country has now turned into a long war of attrition. The region remains unstable and militancy has expanded towards neighboring Pakistan as well.

About 150,000 NATO troops are currently deployed in Afghanistan with plans to stay in the country beyond 2014. This is while NATO has admitted that the militants have increased their power in Afghanistan in the past nine years.

Despite an earlier pledge by Obama for a major drawdown of troops from the war-ravaged country by July 2011, American officials recently announced that US soldiers would remain in Afghanistan for at least another four years.

Analysts say the US is looking for an excuse to expand its military operations in the troubled South and Central Asian regions to secure bases near Russia and China.