History of the Australian Army with automatic weapons; and shoot army personnel or others until they were killed or captured. Australia, as one of the many countries who sent troops to Afghanistan, provided specialist SAS teams for use against Taliban/Al Qaeda forces. Australia was one of the countries to provide combat forces for the US-led invasion of Iraq. In Australia it was known as Operation Falconer. In all Australia contributed some 2,000 personnel. The Army contribution to this was 500 soldiers. Following the end of major combat operations, Australia announced a withdrawal of most of its forces in Iraq. It left behind approximately 950 troops
Withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan went into effect on 4 July 2012. After the signing of the strategic partnership agreement Obama laid out his plans to end the war in Afghanistan responsibly. The plans call for 1) the removal of 23,000 US troops at the summer end of 2012, i.e. at the end of September 2012; 2) Afghan security forces to take the lead in combat operations by the end of 2013 while ISAF forces train, advise and assist the Afghans and fight alongside them when needed; and 3) the complete removal of all U.S. troops by the end of 2014, except for trainers who