This move comes after the Pentagon in 2011 scrapped its "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" ban on gays and lesbians serving openly in the military.

The decision to end the ban had been taken by outgoing US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta and individual military services have until 2016 to seek exemptions if they believed any combat roles should remain closed to women.

It comes after 11 years of non-stop war that has seen 84 women killed as a result of hostile action in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Women have represented around 2% of the US casualties of in Iraq and Afghanistan and some 12% of those deployed in the war efforts in the past 11 years.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed a suit in November seeking to force the Pentagon to end the ban on women in combat, applauded the planned move, which will overturn a 1994 policy preventing women from serving in small front-line combat units.