KABUL - While Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) gradually take over security affairs, NATO troops would support the country in combat operations, if necessary, especially after 2014, an ISAF spokesman said on Monday.
“As Afghan forces move more into the lead for combat operations across the country, ISAF will increasingly take more of a supporting role, but that will include supporting Afghans in combat, if necessary,” Christen Jacobson told a news conference in Kabul.

On Sunday, President Hamid Karzai announced the third phase of security transition from NATO troops to Afghan forces in three provinces -- Kapisa, Parwan and Uruzgan.
Once the third phase was completed, all the 34 provinces would have at least one area or city under Afghan security control; every provincial capital would be in transition and about 75 percent of the population would live in areas under Afghan responsibility.

“People of Afghanistan with transition ongoing are now increasingly seeing their own army and police in their communities providing their security. This is an important mark of progress towards our shared goal of an Afghanistan governed and secured by Afghans, for Afghans,” he added.

Under the current arrangement between the Afghan government and the international community, NATO would withdraw most of its combat troop by the end of 2014, only leaving a skeleton force that would play an advisory role.

Also present at the news conference, the NATO senior civilian representative’s spokesman said Pakistan had not been invited to the Chicago Summit because of its refusal to allow ISAF logistic convoys to pass through its soil.

“Pakistan will not be invited to participate in the conference because it has not yet reopened the NATO supply routes,” said Dominic Medley, who added that discussions were ongoing to break the deadlock.
Islamabad closed the land routes after a cross-border ISAF attack killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in the Mohmand tribal region in November 2011.

Recently, NATO Secretary- General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Pakistan would not be invited to the summit if it failed to reopen the crucial routes.
Medley said leaders from about 60 countries and international agency representatives, including European Union, World Bank and the United Nations, would converge on Chicago next week for the summit. (Pajhwok)