NATO chalks out Afghanistan closure

LISBON, Portugal, Nov. 20 (UPI) -- The NATO military alliance indicated its anti-terror combat mission in Afghanistan is winding down with a 2014 end date, releases from the Portugal summit said.

The leaders of 28 countries meeting in Lisbon appear to be in concurrence with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who recently called for less international military intervention to quash the fundamentalist Taliban and al-Qaida insurgents.

However, NATO's secretary-general, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, made a point of saying the intervention wasn't a sign of defeat, The Guardian newspaper reported.

"If the enemies of Afghanistan have the idea that they can wait it out until we leave, they have the wrong idea," Rasmussen said. "We will stay as long as it takes to finish our job."

There are some 150,000 foreign troops in the country, two-thirds of them from the United States. With public disapproval of the mission vocally growing in NATO-member countries and elsewhere, various national leaders have indicated the intervention would be reduced and shifted more to training and support roles.

Meanwhile, Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. and NATO commander in Afghanistan, was scheduled to host a closed-door presentation on how to make the transition to give the Afghan government control over the country, The New York Times reported.