Kabul: A landmark international conference yesterday endorsed Afghan President Hamid Karzai's plan for Afghanistan's security forces to take over responsibility for safeguarding the country within four years, setting a potential timeline for foreign troops' departure.
The Afghan capital was under virtual lockdown for the high-level gathering, which passed without any major attack.
However, insurgents fired rockets at Kabul's international airport overnight, forcing the diversion of a plane carrying UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to Bagram air base, north of the capital.
Helicopters thundered overhead as the delegations arrived and departed. Below, the streets of Kabul were nearly deserted except for patrolling police.
Determined
"I remain determined that our Afghan national security forces will be responsible for all military and law enforcement operations throughout our country by 2014," Karzai told the delegates, who included Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and dozens of foreign ministers and other dignitaries.
Leaders addressing the conference stressed that the 2014 target would be dependent on the Afghan police and army demonstrating their ability to take the lead on security, on a province-by-province basis.
Despite intensive training by Western mentors, the Afghan army — and the police even more so — are considered far from ready to step into that role.
"I welcome the road map agreed on today on transition to an Afghan lead in security," Nato Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said. "But transition will be based on conditions, not calendars."
He added: "We will never allow the Taliban to overthrow the elected government by force."
A nine-year Taliban insurgency is now at its deadliest in Afghanistan and the militia have carried out a string of deadly suicide and bomb attacks in the heavily fortified Afghan capital.
The toll rose yesterday after an Afghan soldier thought to be an army trainer shot dead two US civilians and a fellow Afghan soldier in the north of the country.
Nato said it was investigating with Afghan authorities if it was a deliberate attack or an accident, it said in a statement.
A Nato soldier and an Afghan service member were also wounded at the training facility near Mazar-i-Sharif, the largest city in relatively peaceful northern Afghanistan.
