Airmen to train Afghans at least through 2016 - Air Force News | News from Afghanistan & Iraq - Air Force Times

Airmen to train Afghans at least through 2016

Airmen will remain in Afghanistan to train that country’s nascent air force at least through 2016, two years after most troops will leave, the general leading the effort said.

Brig. Gen. David Allvin, commanding general of NATO Air Training Command-Afghanistan, reaffirmed NATO’s plans to stay beyond the 2014 deadline for the Kabul government to take over security in Afghanistan.

The mission: to train the Afghan force as it builds to 8,000 airmen and 146 fixed-wing and rotary aircraft.

Allvin spoke with reporters at the Pentagon on Tuesday, two days after Vice President Biden said the U.S. was “going to be totally out of there, come hell or high water, by 2014.” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the next day that Biden was referring only to NATO’s combat role, not the presence of all troops.

Allvin said he has received no orders to accelerate the training of Afghan airmen to meet a 2014 withdrawal deadline.

“Our plan is still consistent with the vision of the president and all the way down the chain of command,” he said via video teleconference. “I believe the president, on Nov. 21 at the [NATO] Lisbon summit, spoke about the goal of, by the end of 2014, having the Afghan national security forces take the lead for security operations throughout Afghanistan. And accompanying that, I believe the secretary of defense mentioned there will still be a fraction of the forces here primarily for training and advising.

“All those are consistent statements, and we’re still on track with that plan.”

Afghanistan’s air force has 4,043 airmen and 56 aircraft, a combination of mostly Russian-built fixed-wing and rotary airframes. The plan is to almost triple the number of aircraft, including adding 20 light aircraft for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, and 16 fixed-wing close-air support aircraft, over the next six years.