AFP – 21 February 2015 – The Pentagon’s new chief, Ashton Carter, flew to Kabul on Saturday to confer with commanders and Afghan leaders about the future of the American military presence in Afghanistan.
Only days after taking the helm as defense secretary, Carter paid an unannounced visit to a country where US troops have been deployed for more than 13 years but are now in a scaled back role.
 Carter said he would meet Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and other leaders as well as top US officers and diplomats “so that I can make my own assessment of that progress and my own assessment of the way forward.”
Carter’s visit comes as President Barack Obama faces a decision about the timetable for a troop drawdown in Afghanistan. Under the current plan, the 10,000-strong force is due to drop to roughly 5,000 by the end of 2015 and then pull out altogether by the time Obama leaves office in two years.
But the Obama administration has already adjusted the pace of the withdrawal, allowing 1,000 additional American forces to remain this year.
And the US commander on the ground, General John Campbell, has suggested he favors slowing the drawdown further, though the details of the possible options before Obama remain unclear.
A US-led NATO force eventually swelled to 130,000 troops, but last year the mission wrapped up its combat operations against Taliban insurgents. A contingent of 12,500 foreign troops has remained to back up Afghanistan’s 350,000 soldiers and police.

 
New Pentagon chief Ashton Carter speaks during a news conference aboard a plane en route to Afghanistan