US PRESIDENT Barack Obama is expected to unveil plans to begin the withdrawal of thousands of US troops from Afghanistan in a prime time televised address tonight from the White House.

After almost ten years at war in Afghanistan, the US has been considering its options for pulling out and now looks set to begin unrolling plans for its full withdrawal from the country.

Here’s how the US campaign looks in numbers:

1,486: US military fatalities in Afghanistan since 2001 invasion

368: Afghan civilians killed in May 2011

30,000: US ‘surge’ troops sent to Afghanistan in 2009 to quash Taliban and al-Qaeda operations

100,000: US troops currently deployed in Afghanistan

110,000,000,000+: the cost in dollars per year of the Afghan War

1: number of Afghan national leaders since 2001 – Hamid Karzai

56: percentage of Americans who want troop withdrawal from Afghanisation as soon as possible, according to latest Pew Research poll

90: percentage of Taliban ‘fighters’ detained by coalition forces last year who turned out to be civilians

3,546: days since US invaded Afghanistan in 2001

1.1.2015: date by which US and NATO troops aim to have left Afghanistan

Read more: The exit begins: 10,000 US troops to leave Afghanistan within a year >