Aust troops coming home from Afghanistan - Sydney Morning Herald

AAP

Special forces troops could stay in Afghanistan to help fight insurgent terrorist threats after Australia's main Tarin Kowt base closes down at the end of this year.

Some 1000 soldiers will come home, ending an eight-year presence in the dangerous southern Oruzgan province, as the NATO-backed mission in the country moves to a new era of Afghan self-sufficiency.

But about 500 troops in Kabul and Kandahar will remain and Australia will decide in coming months whether the Special Operations Task Group (SOTG) will stay into 2014 and beyond.

"The ongoing role for the remainder in Afghanistan will be working with other forces, who are there in training roles," Prime Minister Julia Gillard told reporters in Perth on Tuesday.

"We will consider a continuing role for special forces."

Australia's mission in Afghanistan has cost 39 lives and wounded 249 personnel.

It began in late 2001 when special forces were deployed to help hunt down al-Qaeda remnants.

Operations dwindled to a single soldier as attention turned to Iraq, before resuming in 2005 and 2006 when special forces and an infantry task group was despatched to Oruzgan to combat a resurgent Taliban.

The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) now plans to close the sprawling multinational base at Tarin Kowt by the end of 2013, leaving Australia with no permanent presence in Oruzgan.

"We expect that by the end of the year we will see at least 1000 Australian personnel return home," Defence Minister Stephen Smith told reporters in Canberra.

Australia's mission in Afghanistan has evolved from reconstruction to training to mentoring and advising Afghan National Army forces and security authorities.

At the end of 2012, joint operations with Afghan troops concluded and Australia withdrew from forward operating bases to consolidate at Tarin Kowt.

Australian soldiers still provide security for "outside the wire" activities of the Australian-led Provincial Reconstruction Team, and SOTG soldiers continue highly effective operations, targeting insurgent leaders, bomb makers and the narcotics trade.

Mr Smith said some special forces could remain for training or counter-terrorism operations, under an "appropriate" international force mandate, now being negotiated between Afghanistan and the US.

"If we come to the conclusion that there's no role for special forces in 2014 ... or 2015, either for mandate or other reasons, then at the end of 2013, special forces will come back like everyone else," he said.

Both Mr Smith and Defence Force chief General David Hurley said Australia would leave Oruzgan a better place, with better security and living conditions for the population, although risks remained.

"The risk is different but nonetheless there is still a risk," Mr Smith said.

Afghan and ISAF statistics show 2.5 per cent of the population experiences half of all Taliban-related violence in Afghanistan.

"So operationally, the Taliban has been displaced out of the built-up areas into the more sparsely populated areas," Gen Hurley said.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott said the coalition supported the Afghanistan operation.

"We accept that the sooner we can bring our troops home the better, once the job has been done," he told reporters in Sydney.

Greens leader Christine Milne called for an "explicit" withdrawal strategy and a plan for how Australia will support non-government agencies still in the country.