Updated on
Summary The US ambassador to Afghanistan Ryan Crocker is to leave his post early, the embassy confirmed.
The veteran diplomat, who was appointed to Kabul 10 months ago for a two-year term, previously served as the US envoy to Iraq, Pakistan and Syria.Amb Crocker has confirmed with regret that he will be leaving Kabul this summer, the embassy said on its Twitter feed.No reason was given for Crockers departure and an embassy official told AFP: We have nothing further on that at this time.CBS news, which earlier reported on Crockers plans, quoted a senior State Department official as saying only that Kabul is a tough place to serve.Now aged 62, Crocker was appointed out of retirement in July 2011.His early departure coincides with that of US ambassador to Pakistan, Cameron Munter, and reports that US General John Allen is about to become the fourth NATO commander in Afghanistan to leave early, tipped for a job in Europe.The United States has nearly 100,000 troops in Afghanistan -- out of a NATO total of 130,000 -- fighting an insurgency by hardline Taliban Islamists against the government of President Hamid Karzai.During his term, Crocker oversaw thorny negotiations leading to the signing of a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Afghanistan, designed to govern relations between the two countries after NATO troops pull out in 2014. But ties have been rocked by a series of incidents in recent months, including a video showing US troops urinating on Taliban corpses, riots provoked by the burning of the Koran at a US military base and a massacre of 17 civilians blamed on an American soldier.Details of the number of US troops who may remain in the country after 2014, and their status, are yet to be worked out in a separate security pact.Crocker, along with Allen, was summoned to Karzais palace earlier this month after a number of civilians were killed in ISAF air strikes.Karzai said then that the civilian deaths threatened the strategic pact. But both Crocker and Karzai were in Chicago for the NATO summit, where US President Barack Obama and his allies ratified an irreversible roadmap to gradually and responsibly withdraw their combat troops by the end of 2014.
