U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel says the United States will keep as many as 1,000 more troops in Afghanistan than planned for the first part of 2015.

At a news conference Saturday in Kabul during a visit to Afghanistan, Hagel said the original plan to cut U.S. troop levels to 9,800 by the end of this year has been abandoned, but not because of a recent surge in Taliban attacks.

Hagel says the U.S. will keep up to 10,800 troops for the first few months of next year and then restart the drawdown, which is scheduled to reach 5,500 troops by the end of 2015.

The U.S. decided to keep additional forces in the country temporarily because planned troop commitments by U.S. allies for a NATO train-and-assist mission starting in January have been slow to materialize.