Future of US troops in Afghanistan to be decided by loya jirga John Kerry, the US secretary of state, left Afghanistan on Sunday having negotiated a pact that would retain US troops to train, advise and assist the Aghan security forces, as well as carry out counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaeda. "We will leave this to the representatives of Afghanistan who will come to the Loya Jirga, and then take it to the Afghan parliament, and the Afghan people can decide on this," he said. President Barack Obama has said American troops could not stay in Afghanistan unless the two countries struck a security agreement protecting the soldiers by October 31. Mr Kerry said failure to get approval from the Afghan elders could still see the deal fall through. The Taliban dismiss Mr Karzai as a US puppet and have vowed to continue the insurgency through and beyond the US withdrawal. Mr Karzai and Mr Kerry also agreed a clause that would commit the US to defending Afghanistan from external attack. An Afghan man wearing an Afghan army uniform shot at US soldiers in eastern Afghanistan, killing at least one serviceman yesterday, a Nato spokesman said. The so-called "insider attack" in Paktika province is the fourth in less than a month.