Barack Obama's secret trip to Afghanistan to meet Hamid Karzai

The US President Barack Obama made a secret trip to the war zone in Afghanistan to meet the Afghan President Hamid Karzai and sign an important agreement as reported in the nzherald.co.nz dated the 2nd May of 2012.

It was a lightning visit of seven hours duration.

Obama’s aircraft landed at Bagram airport in the dark and Obama was whisked off in a helicopter to Kabul to meet Karzai.

Obama termed the agreement as ‘the light of a new day’.

This agreement is of considerable significance coming as it does on the anniversary of the death of Osama bin Laden, the al-Qaeda leader and also against the backdrop of Obama’s own re-election as US President.

Obama reiterated that the goal of the US goal was to remove all traces of the al-Qaeda from the face of the earth.

The agreement is to cover the decade after final withdrawal of the US combat troops from Afghanistan in 2014.

As per the agreement – the US forces would not have any permanent base in Afghanistan, nor would it patrol its cities and mountains but would get involved in imparting necessary training to the Afghan military training in counter terrorism.

There were three bomb blasts immediately after the US President left the country – one of these was a suicide car bomb.