Barack Obama reached Afghanistan on surprise visit

Bagram Air Base (Afghanistan): President Barack Obama Monday promised a decision on post-2014 troop numbers in Afghanistan “fairly shortly”.
Obama made a covert night time trip from the White House to Bagram Air Base aboard a darkened Air Force One on a visit meant to hail the sacrifices of US soldiers in Afghanistan ahead of the US Memorial Day weekend.

US officials said Obama offered to see the Afghan leader at the sprawling Bagram base but decided not to go to his palace in central Kabul. They did not say how much notice they had given the Afghan leader of Obama’s arrival.

A US official summed up the latest disconnect in the dysfunctional relationship between Washington and a man it once hailed as Afghanistan’s saviour, by saying: “We’re not surprised that it didn’t work on short notice.”

Obama also avoided Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, the two candidates in a June runoff election to become the next president, with aides saying that he did not want to insert himself in Afghanistan’s “election season.”

Obama renewed his commitment to a limited presence in Afghanistan for US and NATO troops after the withdrawal of combat forces at the end of the year.

He said he hoped that the new Afghan president would agree to a bilateral security agreement mandating the mission, which Karzai has refused to sign. US officials believe either Ghani or Abdullah will do so.

At the end of a war which Obama escalated after taking office, he argued the steep sacrifices of US troops – more than 2,300 have died – are being rewarded.

“After more than a decade of war we are at a pivotal moment,” Obama told a hangar full of cheering US servicemen and women.