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MAY 3, 2011
    
Pressure Rises on U.S. to Trim Troop Numbers in Afghanistan

By YAROSLAV TROFIMOV, HABIB KHAN TOTAKHIL and JULIAN E. BARNES

The death of Osama bin Laden reinforced calls in Afghanistan for a quicker pullout of U.S. troops and, some officials in Washington said, could hasten the shift toward a less troop-intensive U.S. mission.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said bin Laden's killing near Pakistan's capital vindicated his government's growing opposition to U.S.-led combat operations in the Afghan countryside.

"Osama was not in Afghanistan: they found him in Pakistan," Mr. Karzai said. "The war on terror is not in Afghan villages...but in the safe havens of terrorism outside Afghanistan."

Bin Laden's death could prompt the U.S. to move from counterinsurgency operations against Taliban strongholds, which require a substantial ground force, to narrower counterterrorism operations built around commando raids against insurgent leaders, according to officials familiar with U.S. strategy debates. The officials said bin Laden's death pushed the U.S. closer to accomplishing what Mr. Obama has set as the war's primary mission, defeating al Qaeda and preventing its return to Afghanistan.

But Pentagon and other government officials said it would be a mistake to draw down troops quickly, saying doing so could erode recent military gains against the Taliban.

"When you are marching this far down the field, it is kind of silly to walk off," said a senior administration official.

President Barack Obama's plan calls for the U.S. to begin drawing down its 100,000 troops in the country in July, but Mr. Obama and North Atlantic Treaty Organization commanders haven't specified the speed and extent of the pullout. Most foreign combat troops are scheduled to leave by the end of 2014.

The U.S. led an invasion of Afghanistan almost 10 years ago to overthrow the Taliban regime, which had harbored bin Laden and other masterminds of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Yet virtually all coalition combat operations in Afghanistan these days are conducted against the homegrown insurgency, not al Qaeda's foreign fighters. Coalition officials estimate that only about 100 al Qaeda militants operate in Afghanistan.

"Now Americans have no reason to stay," said Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai, who served as prime minister in the Mujahedeen government that fell when the Taliban seized Kabul in 1996.

On Capitol Hill, Sen. Jack Reed (D., R.I.) said bin Laden's death wouldn't affect the pace of withdrawal from Afghanistan. "The president has a timetable," Mr. Reed said. "He's going to stick with that. I think that's appropriate."

Sen. Joe Lieberman, an Independent from Connecticut, said it would be wrong to withdraw quickly. "If we did that, we would repeat a mistake that we've made once before when we pulled out of Afghanistan and that region after the Soviets did" in the late 1980s, he said.

Though the U.S. military sees progress in the war, pointing to campaigns in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand over the past year, the Taliban remain a formidable foe, retaining the ability to launch daily attacks, assassinating government officials and operating a shadow government in large swaths of the countryside.

Aiming in part to address concerns about a premature withdrawal, U.S. Ambassador to Kabul Karl Eikenberry said Monday that "America's strong support for the people of Afghanistan will continue as before."

A senior NATO adviser in Kabul concurred. "In terms of our campaign in Afghanistan, I don't foresee much immediate consequence," the adviser said.

Mr. Karzai, the Afghan leader, also exhorted the Taliban to open peace negotiations, something he and some European allies have pursued for years.

But the Taliban say they won't talk until all foreign forces leave. On Sunday, the Taliban formally launched their spring military offensive, circulating a list of its targets that for the first time included officials of the High Peace Council, the body created by Mr. Karzai to reach out to the insurgency.

"The death of Osama will not put pressure on the Taliban to negotiate," said the Taliban regime's former foreign minister, Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil. "The Taliban are an Afghan movement, while al Qaeda is an international organization."

-- Maria Abi-Habib and Janet Hook contributed to this article.

Write to Yaroslav Trofimov at yaroslav.trofimov@wsj.com