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The US Defence Minister Leon Panetta on Wednesday said that the United State hopes to end its combat mission in Afghanistan by the middle of next year.

The timetable described by US Defence Minister appeared to be the first time the United States has said it would shift into a supporting role, training and advising Afghan troops, by next year.

His remarks came as France also recently said that it will end combat mission in Afghanistan by the end of 2013.

Current Nato strategy, agreed to at a summit in Lisbon, Portugal, in November 2010, calls for coalition forces to gradually shift to a training, advisory and assistance role with the Afghan military on the way to withdrawing all combat troops by the end of 2014.

"Our goal is to complete all of that transition in 2013," Panetta told reporters on the way to a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels. "Hopefully by mid- to the latter part of 2013, we'll be able to make a transition from a combat role."

Panetta emphasised that an early transition did not mean early withdrawal, "We've got to stick to the Lisbon strategy."

Nato's top official said on Monday that the organisation will hand over all security responsibilities to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.

Nato's Secretary General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, acknowledged that the final phase of security transition will start in mid-2013, and at that point security for all the cities and districts of Afghanistan will be handed over to Afghan security forces.

"We will stick to the roadmap that was outlined at the Nato summit in Lisbon in 2010, according to which we will gradually hand over lead responsibility to the Afghans, a process that has been started and hopefully will be completed by the end of 2014," Mr Rasmussen said.

"It's still a pretty robust role that we'll be engaged in," Panetta said. "That doesn't mean that we're not going to be combat-ready."

However, US President Barack Obama has yet to decide how many troops will stay in Afghanistan and for how long.

The US has around 90,000 troops in Afghanistan, fighting insurgents. It has lost 1890 soldiers since 2001 in the Afghan war.