The 48 countries of the NATO-led force in Afghanistan struck a deal with President Hamid Karzai to begin transfering parts of the battlefield to his control in early 2011 and move Western troops to a support role by 2014.

While all the allies agreed to set the target date to end their offensive operations in Afghanistan, the United States warned that "some hard fighting remains ahead" and did not rule out combat continuing after 2014.

Nevertheless, the coalition's second largest troop provider, Britain, set a "firm deadline" of 2015 for withdrawing its fighting force, and Spain said its own involvement could be over as soon as 2012.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen vowed the allies would stand by Kabul after its combat mission ends, and US President Barack Obama said American forces could stay on and were �breaking the Taliban's momentum."

"But my goal is to make sure by 2014 we have transitioned Afghans into the lead, and it is a goal to make sure that we are not still engaged in combat operations of the sort that we're involved with now," Obama said.

"Certainly our footprint will have been significantly reduced."

A senior White House official said Obama has "not decided yet" to change to a non-combat mission in 2014, despite signing up to NATO's target date.

"The issue of changing combat missions is an independent national decision, which will be made by all 28 members of NATO," he said. "In the case of the United States, we simply have not taken that decision yet."

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron broke ranks with Washington to make what he called a "firm commitment", promising that none of his country's 10,000-strong force would remain in a combat role after 2015.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said that, while an overall transition to Afghan command between 2011 and 2014 was "reasonable", for Spain's remaining forces a target date of 2012 "cannot be ruled out."

In Afghanistan, the Taliban scoffed at NATO's plans.

"It has become clear that after nine years of occupation, the invaders are doomed towards the same fate as those that tread this path before them," the hardline Islamist group said in an emailed statement.

Even as NATO met, four more civilians were killed when two suicide bombers struck in the east of the country, adding to a grim toll in the bloodiest year yet for allied soldiers and ordinary Afghans.

The summit was attended by leaders from the 28 NATO allies, the 20 other nations that fight alongside them in the ISAF military coalition, big cash donor Japan and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon.

NATO commanders want the allies to send enough funds and military trainers to allow them to boost the total size of Afghanistan's national security forces to 306,000 from 256,000 within the next 12 months.

Karzai surprised his allies this week by urging US forces to scale down operations and halt hated night raids by special forces, but after the summit he suggested the row had been smoothed over.

"I hope that as we move forward, many of these difficulties will go away and that then our movement to the future will be one without the difficulties that we are encountering," he said, when asked about the raids.

Obama acknowledged his conversations with Karzai are often "blunt", but insisted US forces must be allowed to protect themselves while helping their Afghan colleagues build up their strength.

The number of ordinary Afghans killed in the conflict rose by a third in the first six months of 2010 to 1,271, with most deaths caused by Taliban insurgent attacks, the United Nations reported in August.

Meanwhile, the Alliance held a separate summit with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, their first such summit in two years, striking a new cooperation deal on Afghanistan and on a new missile defence shield.

Rasmussen said NATO had struck an agreement with Moscow to allow shipments of non-lethal supplies on Russian railways into and out of Afghanistan -- including, for the first time, of armoured vehicles.

"A period of very difficult tense relations has been overcome," Medvedev said. "We have ambitious plans, we will work across all directions including European missile defence."

But he said there was no firm agreement on how Russia would take part beyond studying the European offer, and that Moscow would only take part as an equal partner.

Following the NATO summit, Obama met with European Union leaders.

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