KABUL (Reuters) – The Afghan army and police may soon be in charge of security for nearly half of their population, under plans for the second stage of a security transfer that NATO nations hope will serve as firm evidence their troops can come home on deadline.

Foreign nations fighting in Afghanistan have agreed with Afghan President Hamid Karzai that all combat soldiers will leave by the end of 2014. They are organising a years-long handover to consolidate Afghan control more effectively.

Being able to say that around half of Afghans rely on their countrymen for security would be a simple milestone Western leaders could use to show war-weary voters back home that progress is being made after a decade of fighting.

“This is important to many of the troop contributing countries as a way to show that they are making progress towards bringing troops home, or getting Afghanistan to a position where their soldiers really can leave,” said one senior Western diplomat of the new handover plans.

The transition began this summer, when Afghan forces were officially put in charge of a handful of provinces and cities, and Karzai is expected to announce the areas that will make up the second stage of the transition within weeks.

Diplomats and military officials say the proposed regions together account for around half of the population — though not all may make the final selection.

Even the most modest proposals are expected to leave two out of every five Afghans living in areas where responsibility for security has been transferred to Afghans, even with barely a quarter of the country’s provinces handed over in their entirety.

KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan police have dismantled the protest camp of a hunger-striking politician and taken her to hospital, raising concerns the government may be taking a harder line on political dissent after a year of chaos and stagnation in parliament.

Former member of parliament Semin Barekzai stopped eating and moved into a tent outside parliament at the start of October to protest being stripped of her seat by poll authorities in August, nearly a year after the vote.

Her protest was into its 12th day, gathering growing Afghan and international media attention, when police abruptly ended it on Thursday night, on the order of the Interior Ministry.

It was not clear if Barekzai was continuing the hunger strike in hospital, as she could not be reached.

“There are a lot of really serious human rights violations in Afghanistan, but until now the government has been relatively tolerant of free speech, so this seems like an alarming new approach to dealing with dissent,” said Heather Barr, at Human Rights Watch Afghanistan.

Hunger strikes are unusual in Afghanistan though a familiar political weapon in nearby India, and Barekzai’s campaign exposed divisions on how democracy should function in the war-torn, conservative and ethnically divided country.

Top religious leaders condemned hunger strikes as un-Islamic and poll authorities said she had been fairly beaten and they could not be held responsible for her fate.