Canada to officially end Afghan combat mission

KANDAHAR: Canada was to officially end its combat mission in Afghanistan on Thursday, after nine years of fighting which saw it loses 157 troops and spend more than $11 billion dollars.

With popular support for the war sapped at home, most of the nearly 3,000 Canadian soldiers, based mainly in the dangerous battleground of Kandahar, have packed up and gone home.

A ceremony was due to be held at Kandahar airfield to mark the formal end of combat operations, although hundreds of troops will stay on in a training role. In recent weeks they have been completing their final patrols, packing up dusty outposts and gathering at the giant Kandahar airfield military base to debrief before starting to catch their flights home.

On Tuesday, Canada handed control of their last district to US forces in a flag-lowering ceremony, a key symbolic step in the drawdown process, although the Americans had been in place for weeks.

All foreign combat forces are due to leave by the end of 2014 and hand security to Afghan forces. Canadian commanders insist they have made strong gains since they moved into Kandahar, the Taliban's birthplace and one of the war's fiercest hotspots.

A separate Canadian training mission involving 950 troops will work in Kabul with Afghan security forces. Canada will also continue to give aid to Afghanistan, with its overall involvement between now and the end of 2014 expected to cost around US$700 million a year.

Copyright AFP (Agence France-Presse), 2011