MOSCOW, February 17 (RIA Novosti) - Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai has said he will issue a decree on Sunday to ban his country’s security forces from urging foreign air strikes in residential areas, media reported.
“I will issue a decree that no Afghan security forces… can ask for the foreigners’ planes for carrying out operations on our homes and villages,” the BBC quoted Karzai as saying at the Afghan National Military Academy.
Less than a week ago, 10 civilians were killed in a night raid in Afghanistan’s eastern province of Kunar, the British broadcaster said.
NATO-led troops in Afghanistan, who have been handing over responsibility for security to Afghan forces, are to withdraw from the country by late 2014.
US President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address before Congress Tuesday that “by the end of next year, our war in Afghanistan will be over.”
The United States currently has 66,000 troops in Afghanistan.
The US president said in January he could not comment on the number of US troops who might remain in the country after the end of 2014.
