US withdraws its troops from Afghanistan in 2013

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Wednesday the coalition in Afghanistan hopes to have shifted its primary mission from combat to advising and training Afghan security forces next year, the USA Today reported.

A decision to push this a year earlier throws out the whole transition plan. The transition has been planned against a timetable and this makes us rush all our preparations," a senior Afghan security official, who could not be named because he was not authorized to speak on the matter, told Reuters on Thursday.

Panetta said the U.S. troops would shift next year to a supporting role, training and advising Afghan troops who would take charge of a country that has been at war for more than three decades.

A faster end to U.S. combat in Afghanistan could give Obama an election-year lift, the Reuters reports.