A US Department of Defense report released Monday states that only one of the Afghan National Army's 23 brigades is able to operate independently without support of the US or Nato troops.
The report also stresses that the Taliban are still a major threat to Afghanistan while widespread corruption continues in the central government and Pakistan continues to provide critical support to insurgents.
The Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) responded Tuesday saying that it will work together with Pakistan to solve the issue of extremism in the region.
"Because peace and security in Afghanistan and Pakistan has a regional dimension, the Afghan and Pakistani governments are trying to have negotiations with other countries to eradicate extremism from the region," MoFA spokesman Janan Mosazai said in Kabul.
Afghan Ministry of Interior acknowledged that insurgent safe havens in Pakistan have been a threat to the security and stability of the country for the past eleven years and are expected to remain a fundamental threat in the future.
"The insurgents, Al Qaeda, Haqqani and Taliban safe havens in Pakistan have been a major to Afghanistan in the past eleven years. They should be eliminated," MOI spokesman Sediq Seddiqi told TOLOnews on Tuesday.
With most of the 68,000 US troops expected to remain in Afghanistan until the end of 2013, American officials have said that the progress of war depends on whether the Taliban could rebuild since their reported depletion during the US "surge" of 33,000 soldiers in the past two years in the south.
Corruption, weak governance, limited human capacity, lack of access to rural areas, insecurity, lack coordination between central and provincial governments and uneven distribution of power in the government braches are considered to be other major challenges ahead of the country, as stated by the report.