Panetta: US looking to end 'formal combat role' in Afghanistan in 2013

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, en route to a NATO summit in Brussels, said Wednesday for the first time that U.S. forces will look to end combat operations in Afghanistan next year.

Panetta apparently tipped off the Obama administration's timetable for combat operations, one which to date has not been made public. While U.S. and NATO forces still face a 2014 deadline to end the Afghan war, Panetta's comments suggest the administration is looking to accelerate the phases of that transition. 

"Hopefully, by mid- to the latter part of 2013, we'll be able to make a transition from a combat role to a training advise-and-assist role," Panetta told reporters traveling with him. "It's not going to be a kind of formal combat role that we are now." 

The comments were reported in the Washington Post, and the Pentagon confirmed to Fox News that they are accurate. 

It is the first time a senior Obama administration official has said the United States would end its combat role next year. According to a senior U.S. official, it was an announcement that was supposed to be made in May at a NATO ministerial meeting in Chicago. 

Panetta, it seems, may have gotten ahead of the administration on this, according to the official.

A senior U.S. defense official tried to clarify Panetta's remarks, saying they were consistent with the Lisbon process, which calls for U.S. and NATO forces to leave Afghanistan at the end of 2014, and similar to the way U.S. forces transitioned out of Iraq. 

"The shift in mission doesn't mean fighting ends," the official said. "The emphasis will shift to training." 

Another official stressed that Panetta was referring to a "change of mission," not an "end of combat" altogether. 

Panetta, according to the Post, said the U.S. would continue to play a "robust role" in Afghanistan. 

"It's not going to be a kind of formal combat role that we are now," he said. "That doesn't mean that we're not going to be combat ready. We will be because we always have to be in order to defend ourselves." 

The defense secretary said U.S. and NATO forces would stay in the country through 2014 as originally envisioned. 

"We're committed to an enduring presence there," he said.

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