The US presence in Afghanistan has entered its tenth year since the Afghan war in 2001. The presence of US troops in Afghanistan began with the outbreak of war in 2001.
In response to the September 11 attacks on the United States, an alliance including US and the UK, went to war, aiming to dismantle the Al-Qaeda terrorist organization by striking at its safe haven in Afghanistan.
After President Barack Obama took office IN 2009, he announced US troops would withdraw from the country beginning in July, 2011. He pledged that security operations would be fully transitioned to the Afghan government by the end of 2014,
But in 2009, Obama announced that he would deploy an additional 30-thousand soldiers in Afghanistan over a period of six months. He also set December 31st, 2014, as a target date for ending the combat mission in Afghanistan.
Now the number of US troops in Afghanistan stands three times higher than it was when Obama first took office, reaching about 100-thousand.
The cost of these US forces has become evident. The government has been spending nearly 10 billion US dollars per month on the deployment, a huge burden for the already financially embattled government. To date, over 1,500 US soldiers have died in Afghanistan.
The transition to full Afghan control will begin on July 20 in five provincial capital cities and two provinces. The provincial capitals identified for transition are Lashkar Gah in Helmand province, plus capitals of provinces in the west, east and north and most of Kabul, the nation's capital. The largely peaceful northern provinces of Bamyan and Panjshir will also be set to begin the transition to Afghan control in the coming months.