President Obama made a surprise visit to Kabul, Afghanistan, overnight on a secret trip that coincides with the one-year anniversary of the U.S. mission that killed Osama bin Laden.
Obama touched down at Bagram Air Field just outside the Afghan capital at 1:50 p.m. ET Tuesday, following a roughly 13-hour flight aboard Air Force One that was shrouded in secrecy to protect the president's security.
He will address the nation live from the base tonight at 7:30 p.m. ET, following meetings with Afghan president Hamid Karzai in Kabul, officials said.
He is expected to announce the signing of the Strategic Partnership Agreement, which will ensure U.S. military and financial support for Afghanistan beyond 2014, when the final U.S. combat troops will withdraw.
The arrangement, coming ahead of a NATO summit on Afghanistan in Chicago later this month, is designed to send a strong message to the region that the U.S. is not abandoning the country even as it sharply reduces its footprint there.
As the Afghan military takes the lead in domestic security operations, U.S. intelligence resources, military aircraft and counterterrorism tools will continue to provide support to prevent the Taliban's return to power, officials said.
Secret Mission for Obama
Obama's trip to Afghanistan -- his third since becoming president -- began shortly after midnight Tuesday eastern time, when Air Force One took off from Joint Base Andrews outside Washington, D.C.
Charles Dharapak/AP Photo
After landing at Bagram at 10:20 p.m. local time, Obama immediately boarded waiting helicopters for a 40-minute flight to Kabul, flying under the cover of darkness, before landing and motorcading to the Afghan Presidential Palace.
U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and ISAF Commander Lieutenant General Curtis "Mike" Scaparrotti greeted the president at Bagram and joined him for the trip to visit Karzai.
Visit Amid Strained Relations
A semi-annual Pentagon report to Congress released Tuesday on the status of the 11-year war concluded that coalition forces still face "long-term and acute challenges" because of safe havens in Pakistan and "widespread corruption" within the Afghan government "that limits its effectiveness and legitimacy."
Still, the Taliban has been degraded and security in the country has improved over the past six months, according to the report. After five consecutive years where enemy-initiated attacks rose, they dropped 9 percent in 2011 over 2010 and were down 16 percent in 2012 compared to the year before.
"We are making serious important progress" but "challenges remain," a senior Defense Department official told reporters this week.
A number of bloody incidents involving American and Afghan soldiers and civilians have also complicated the war effort.
In March, a U.S. soldier went on a shooting rampage in an Afghan village, killing 17 civilians including women and children, sparking anti-American protests across the country.
Meanwhile, the number of U.S. service members killed by Afghan allies they worked alongside has continued to climb, with more than a dozen so-called green-on-blue attacks leaving 10 dead Americans dead this year alone.
The inadvertent burning of Korans by American soldiers on a military base earlier this year and photos of troops posing with deceased Afghans and urinating on their corpses have also enflamed U.S.-Afghan relations.
The U.S. and its NATO allies intend to turn over security control to the Afghans by the end of 2014. The U.S. is expected to reduce its force to about 68,000 by the end of September, down from the roughly 88,000 now in Afghanistan.
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