The United States has announced plans to end its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2013 and shift to a training role, one year prior to when most US troops are expected to withdraw

The United States has announced plans to end its combat mission in Afghanistan in 2013 and shift to a training role, one year prior to when most US troops are expected to withdraw.

Wednesday's comments by Defence Secretary Leon Panetta was the first time the US administration had forecast American and allied troops could end their combat operations by the second half of next year.

"Hopefully by the mid-to-latter part of 2013, we'll be able to make a transition from a combat role to a train, advise and assist role," Panetta told reporters aboard his plane en route to a NATO meeting in Brussels.

"That's basically what...we did in Iraq. And it's what we're going to try to do in Afghanistan", Panetta said.

In keeping with the approach used by the administration of US President Barack Obama in Iraq, Panetta said the end of a US combat role in the Central-Asian nation is part of a gradual NATO plan adopted in Lisbon in November 2010, which calls for handing over security duties to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

The United States had no plans to move up the 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of American and coalition forces, Panetta said.

Of stepping back from a combat role, Panetta said "everybody assumed that there would come a time, as we move towards the end of 2014, that we would be transitioning that role."

"We all went in here together and we'll all go out together, but we have to do it on the basis of a strong alliance and a strong commitment that was made in Lisbon," said Panetta of the United States' NATO allies, including France, before he was due to meet NATO defense ministers on Thursday.

Panetta termed 2013 as a "crucial" year for the final transfer of remaining areas to Afghan security forces and "2014 becomes a year of consolidating the transition."

Similarly, the NATO also announced that the Afghan forces were expected to take control of security in their country by the middle of next year.

"We expect the last provinces to be handed over to the Afghanistan security forces by mid-2013," AFP quoted NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen as saying.

"From that time Afghan security forces are in the lead all over Afghanistan. And from that time, the role of our troops will gradually change from combat to support,” he added.