Made tremendous progress in our goals in Afghanistan: US

They said that before the US arrived, areas of Afghanistan were used as a terrorist launchpad

The US has made tremendous progress in its goals of preventing terrorists from using Afghanistan as a launching pad against it, the White House said on a day on which one of its top generals was shot dead in the war-torn country.

"Before the US arrived, some lawless areas in Afghanistan were used by a terrorist organisation to launch a horrific terrorist attack against the American people on our homeland," White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said yesterday.

"The military operation that has been underway in Afghanistan for more than a dozen years now has been devoted to ensuring that terrorists could never again use Afghanistan as a base of operation to launch large-scale attacks against Americans in the US or anywhere around the world," he said.

"We have made tremendous progress against that goal, and that is a testament to the service and sacrifice of so many American servicemen and women who have served in that country, but also to the service of many American civilians who have also served to build up Afghanistan and to strengthen their local institutions of government and security there," he said.

The US, Earnest said, at the beginning of 2015 will have about 9,800 personnel in different parts of Afghanistan and will be serving alongside NATO allies and partners.

"By the end of 2015, we'll have reduced that presence by roughly half, and consolidated that presence in Kabul and at the Bagram Air Field," he said.

"One year later, by the end of 2016, we would anticipate that our military would draw down to the kind of normal embassy presence, along with a security assistance component there to ensure the safety of American personnel that will remain in Afghanistan," he said, adding that this is contingent upon the signing of the bilateral security agreement that's been agreed to for many months now.

"But this is why we have been focused on ensuring a proper, but hopefully prompt, resolution of the Afghan election so that the new Afghan president can take office and sign the bilateral security agreement," he said.

His remarks came on a day on which Maj Gen Harold J Greene, the Deputy Commander of the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, was shot dead at a US army base near Kabul by an individual, whom the Pentagon believes was a member of Afghan National Security Forces.

No US general has been killed in combat since the Vietnam War and the last highest-ranking casualty was Lt Gen Timothy Joseph Maude was killed by a hijacked airliner that crashed into the Pentagon in the 9/11 attacks.

"While we have made tremendous progress in disrupting, dismantling, and defeating al-Qaeda operations and leadership in Afghanistan, and progress in winding down US involvement in that conflict, this shooting is, of course, a painful reminder of the service and sacrifice that our men and women in uniform make every day for this country," Earnest said.

The Pentagon is conducting an investigation into the circumstances of this incident.

"We are going to wait until there are some additional details about this incident before commenting further about the possible motive or any information about the perpetrator who was involved in this incident," he said.