Francois Hollande makes surprise visit to Afghanistan Mr Hollande conceded that the threat posed by terrorists in Afghanistan had been not been eradicated since the 2001 invasion toppled the Taliban regime for sheltering Osama bin Laden after the 9/11 attacks. "Without having totally disappeared, the terrorist threat from Afghanistan to our and our allies' territory has been partially curbed," he said. Mr Hollande said 2,000 French soldiers would leave by the end of the year, but added that France would continue development projects. He has also indicated that French troops will continue to train Afghan police and soldiers. But the time had come, he said, for Afghans to "take the path they choose freely" in deciding the future of their country. Mr Hollande told Obama in Camp David and the Nato summit in Chicago that he would not renege on a campaign pledge to repatriate French combat troops by 2012. France has lost 83 soldiers in Afghanistan. It provides the fifth largest contingent to NATO'S 130,000-strong US-led force, but allies have downplayed the effect of their early departure, saying Afghan troops are ready to take over. Paris has reserved judgment on contributing to the cost of the Afghan security budget, estimated at $4.1 billion a year from 2015. The relatively quiet Kabul district of Surobi, where French troops are also based, was handed over to local control in April. Kapisa has been included in the third of a five-phase transfer, which Afghan officials say could take as little as six months, but which NATO'S International Security Assistance Force has timetabled at 12-18 months. But analysts have expressed concern about NATO'S withdrawal, pointing out that Afghan forces have a mixed record at best and questioning whether a security vacuum will only heighten violence if not hasten a return to civil war. "Clearly there is a rush for the exits by Western leaders, but there is no Plan B to address worsening battlefield conditions and political crises if they occur," wrote veteran Afghan watcher, Ahmed Rashid, in The New York Review of Books. More Afghan civilians died in 2011 than the total number of Nato troops, 3,009, killed since 2001. And last year's 3,021 civilian deaths marked the fifth straight year that the toll has risen, according to UN figures. The number of internal refugees last year hit nearly half a million, the highest for about a decade, part of what Amnesty International has called "a largely hidden but horrific humanitarian and human rights crisis." And more than 30,000 Afghans sought asylum abroad last year - another 10-year high. Thousands of others make their way abroad illegally. He was accompanied by French defence and foreign ministers, Jean-Yves Le Drian and Laurent Fabius, and chief of army staff Admiral Edouard Guillaud.