Afghanistan:

Nation to have 87% control with next NATO hand-over.

Afghan forces are preparing to take the lead in safeguarding more parts of the country and will be responsible for defending 87 percent of the population after the next NATO hand-over.

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN — Afghan forces are preparing to take the lead in safeguarding more parts of the country, in line with plans to assume full responsibility for security when most foreign troops withdraw by the end of 2014, President Hamid Karzai’s government announced Monday.

The next phase of the hand-over of security duties from North Atlantic Treaty Organization-led troops to Afghan soldiers and police will begin in two months and will give the national forces primary responsibility for defending 87 percent of the population, said Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, who heads a transition commission set up by the government.

Speaking at a news conference, Ahmadzai dismissed concerns about the readiness of Afghan troops to take on the lead combat role against the Taliban-led insurgency, saying security has improved or remained the same in areas that have already made the transition.

“When the enemies of Afghanistan have attacked the Afghan national security forces, they have been defeated,” Defense Minister Bismillah Khan Mohammadi said at the briefing.

Most of the districts that will be included in the next phase of the transition are in the north and interior of Afghanistan, with one district in the restive southern province of Helmand. When the hand-overs are completed at an unspecified date, Afghan security forces will be responsible for 23 of the country’s 34 provinces.

“This is a significant step towards our shared goal of seeing Afghans fully in charge of their own security by the end of 2014,” NATO SecretaryGeneral Anders Fogh Rasmussen said.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta says the Afghan government’s announcement is evidence that the country is on the path to self-governance.

It’s the fourth step in a five-step process that began in 2011 and is scheduled to finish with Afghan forces fully in charge of security by the end of 2014.

By then, the U.S.-led NATO combat mission is to end. The Obama administration is considering how many U.S. troops it would keep there for a follow-on mission, which likely would include counterterrorism. There are 66,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

The challenges were evident from a Pentagon report in December that said only one of the Afghan army’s 23 brigades can operate without international support.

The U.S. and its allies plan to keep troops in Afghanistan after 2014 to train, advise and assist the national security forces, but the size of that force is under discussion.