France's decision to withdraw combat troops from Afghanistan a year earlier than planned deals a blow to the US-led war effort and threatens to trigger a "rush to the exits" by other Nato members, experts said on Monday. President Nicolas Sarkozy's surprise announcement to pull out his country's forces in 2013 "upends a well-planned, well laid-out Nato strategy of transition in Afghanistan going through 2014", said Damon Wilson, executive vice president of the Atlantic Council and former White House official. At a meeting of defence ministers this week in Brussels, an anxious United States will be engaging in a round of "damage control" to shore up the alliance's agreed upon timeline, Wilson told reporters.
