President Obama will announce plans to keep only 5,000 troops in Afghanistan by 2015, according to senior officials.

Three senior administration officials said Obama will make the announcement through a statement Tuesday afternoon. The three officials spoke on the condition of anonymity.

"He will make clear that we are open to continued efforts in Afghanistan on two narrow missions after 2014: training Afghan forces and supporting CT operations against the remnants of al-Qaeda," one official said. "We will only sustain a military presence after 2014 if the Afghan government signs the Bilateral Security Agreement."

An official said that the two-pronged mission is counter-terrorism and training.

Sometime in 2015, according to the plan, Obama plans to reduce troop levels by about half and in 2016 the U.S. will reduce troop levels to "...a normal Embassy presence with a security assistance office in Kabul, as we have done in Iraq," an official said.

Obama will detail his plans for troop presence in Afghanistan in the White Hose Rose Garden at 2:45 p.m. EDT.

Obama's choice to keep 9,800 troops differs from the former commander of all forces in Afghanistan. Marine Gen. John Allen recommended over 13,000 troops remain in Afghanistan after this year.

"America's war in Afghanistan will come to a responsible end," the president said in a surprise visit to Bagram Air Base on Sunday.

Currently there are about 33,000 troops in Afghanistan. The 13-year war is the longest in American history and Obama says that keeping troops in Afghanistan ensures that the successes the U.S. has had in Afghanistan will not be reversed.

"After all the sacrifices we've made, we want to preserve the gains that you have helped to win and we're going to make sure that Afghanistan can never again, ever, be used again to launch an attack against our country," Obama said.