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		</div><p><a href="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/obama-visits-troops-in-afghanistan.jpg"><img class="alignnone size-full" title="President Barack Obama greets troops at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan (AP)" src="http://londonglossy.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/min-obama-visits-troops-in-afghanistan.jpg" alt="President Barack Obama greets troops at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan (AP)"/></a></p>
<p>US President Barack Obama has made a surprise visit to Afghanistan and told American troops that they are making important progress in the war.</p>
<p>He pledged the Asian country would never again be a &#8220;safe haven for terrorists&#8221; who want to attack the United States.</p>
<p>&#8220;You will succeed in your mission,&#8221; Obama told more than 3,500 cheering troops in a huge hangar at Bagram Airfield. &#8220;We said we were going to break the Taliban&#8217;s momentum. That&#8217;s what you&#8217;re doing. You&#8217;re going on the offence, tired of playing defence.&#8221;</p>
<p>Obama had flown to Afghanistan to thank the troops and to deal with frayed relations with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.</p>
<p>But plans for a face-to-face meeting were abruptly scrapped. The White House and Afghan officials blamed the last-minute cancellation on rough weather. Instead, the two leaders spoke by phone, Obama at the air base and Karzai in Kabul.</p>
<p>Obama&#8217;s surprise visit, his second to Afghanistan as President, came a year after he widened the ever deadlier war and ahead of the completion later this month of a review of the nine-year-plus conflict. &#8220;I don&#8217;t need to tell you this is a tough fight,&#8221; Obama said.</p>
<p>He met the top Nato commander in Afghanistan, US General David Petraeus, and US Ambassador Karl Eikenberry, and also visited wounded soldiers. He presented five Purple Hearts, military awards for wounded service members.</p>
<p>There are now about 150,000 coalition forces in Afghanistan, roughly 100,000 of them Americans. The US and its Nato partners agreed last month in Lisbon, Portugal, to begin turning over control to local Afghan authorities in 2011, with a goal of completing that transition by the end of 2014.</p>
<p>&#8220;We look forward to a new phase next year, the beginning of transition to Afghan responsibility,&#8221; Obama said. &#8220;Thanks to your service we are making important progress,&#8221; he told the troops.</p>
<p>&#8220;On behalf of more than 300 million Americans, we are here to say thank you &#8230; for everything that you do. We will never let this country serve as a safe haven for terrorists who will attack the Unites States of America again. That will never happen,&#8221; he said.</p>
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