Nato has made it clear the decision to handover provinces will be made from the ground up not as an edict from Washington via Kabul.
Withdrawal means handing over security to Afghan forces, district by district, province by province.
Herat in the north-west of the country, is one of the first in line for such transfer.
But as Al Jazeera's Sue Turton reports, local police want more support before they take over.
