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IPFS News Link • Afghanistan

UK may speed troop pullout in 2013 over Marines shooting scandal

• RT.com
 

­British Defense Secretary Philip Hammond told the BBC on Sunday that he expected the 2013 withdrawal to be “significant, which means thousands, not hundreds.” He did “not expect it to be the majority,” however.

This would result in a withdrawal of around 4,500 military personnel out of the 9,500 currently stationed in Afghanistan; 500 troops are scheduled to leave the country by the end of this year.

All UK personnel are officially due to leave Afghanistan alongside the 2014 US troop pullout, but growing financial problems in Britain and rising tensions between alliance forces and their Afghan counterparts may speed up the withdrawal process.

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