KABUL - US President Barack Obama said in his State of the Union address that the Taliban's momentum has been broken and remaining al-Qaeda operatives are scrambling to escape the US's reach.
He said a focused approach and the end of war in Iraq allowed the US to make "decisive blows" against extremist organizations.
"From this position of strength, we have begun to wind down the war in Afghanistan. 10,000 of our troops have come home. 23,000 more will leave by the end of this summer," the President said in this speech to Congress on Tuesday. "This transition to Afghan lead will continue, and we will build an enduring partnership with Afghanistan, so that it is never again a source of attacks against America."
"For the first time in nine years, there are no Americans fighting in Iraq. For the first time in two decades, Osama bin Laden is not a threat to this country. Most of al-Qaeda's top lieutenants have been defeated. The Taliban's momentum has been broken, and some troops in Afghanistan have begun to come home," he added.
The US has about 90,000 troops in Afghanistan, fighting insurgents. A total of 1,886 soldiers have lost their lives fighting in the decade-long war.
The US recently began peace talks with the Taliban.
On Saturday, the US special representative to Afghanistan, Marc Grossman, arrived in Kabul and met with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to discuss how the talks are being conducted. Mr. Karzai is concerned about being marginalized from the talks. The Afghan government has stressed that the talks should be led by Afghans.
It has been reported that top US officials held talks with a representative of insurgent commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a man who has been branded a terrorist by Washington.
Dr Ghairat Baheer, a representative and son-in-law of Hekmatyar, told The Associated Press this week that he had meetings with David Petraeus, the former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan who is now CIA director, and US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and US Marine General John Allen, currently the top commander in the country.
National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden would not confirm that such meetings took place but said the US was maintaining "a range of contacts in support of an Afghan-led reconciliation process."
An unidentified US official said General Petraeus met Dr Baheer in July 2011 in Afghanistan.