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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- On a swift, secretive trip to the war zone, President Barack Obama declared Tuesday night that after years of sacrifice the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan is winding down just as it has already ended in Iraq. "We can see the light of a new day," he said on the anniversary of Osama bin Laden's death and in the midst of his own re-election campaign.

"Our goal is to destroy al-Qaida, and we are on a path to do exactly that," Obama said in an unusual speech to America broadcast from an air base halfway around the world.

He spoke after signing an agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai to cover the decade after the planned final withdrawal of U.S. combat troops in 2014. Obama said American forces will be involved in counter-terrorism and training of the Afghan military, "but we will not build permanent bases in this country, nor will we be patrolling its cities and mountains."

In a blunt reminder of Afghanistan's fragile security situation, a series of explosions and gunfire erupted in Kabul just hours after Obama left, killing at least six people. The attacks occurred near a private armed compound that houses hundreds of international workers. One of the blasts was a suicide car bomb, Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqi said. The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

The president landed in Bagram in darkness, and his helicopter roared to Kabul for the meeting with Karzai, under close guard with only the outlines of the nearby mountains visible. Later, back at the base, he was surrounded by U.S. troops, shaking every hand. He ended his lightning visit with the speech delivered straight to the television camera - and the voters he was trying to reach back home.

Two armored troop carriers served as a backdrop, rather than the customary Oval Office tableau.

His Republican re-election foe, Mitt Romney, was in New York, where the destruction of the twin towers on Sept. 11, 2001, set in motion the decisions that led to the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Romney accused Obama of politicizing the fleeting national unity that came with the death of bin Laden, the 9/11 terror mastermind.

In a statement released by his campaign later, Romney said he was pleased that Obama had returned to Afghanistan, that the troops and the American people deserved to hear from the president what is at stake in the war. "Success in Afghanistan is vital to our nation's security," he said.

At the air base, Obama said, "This time of war began in Afghanistan, and this is where it will end. ... With faith in each other, and our eyes fixed on the future, let us finish the work at hand and forge a just and lasting peace."

Earlier, he delivered a similarly upbeat message to the troops. Noting their sacrifice, he said, "There's a light on the horizon."

It was Obama's fourth trip to Afghanistan, his third as commander in chief. He was less than seven hours on the ground in all. He also visited troops at a hospital at the Bagram base, awarding 10 Purple Hearts.

According to the Pentagon, more than 1,800 American troops have been killed across more than a decade of war in Afghanistan.

Some 88,000 remain stationed there.

The wars here and in Iraq combined have cost almost $1.3 trillion. And recent polls show that up to 60 percent of Americans oppose the continued U.S. presence in Afghanistan.

In his speech to the nation, Obama said, "I recognize many Americans are tired of war."

He said that last year, "we removed 10,000 U.S. troops from Afghanistan. Another 23,000 will leave by the end of the summer. After that, reductions will continue at a steady pace, with more of our troops coming home. And as our coalition agreed, by the end of 2014 the Afghans will be fully responsible for the security of their country."

Without mentioning the political campaign back home, Obama claimed that on his watch the fortunes of the terrorists have suffered mightily.

Over the past three years "the tide has turned. We broke the Taliban's momentum. We've built strong Afghan security forces. We devastated al-Qaida's leadership, taking out over 20 of their top 30 leaders," he said.

"And one year ago, from a base here in Afghanistan, our troops launched the operation that killed Osama bin laden."

In a reference to the destruction of New York's World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, he added, "As we emerge from a decade of conflict abroad and economic crisis at home, it is time to renew America ... a united America of grit and resilience, where sunlight glistens off soaring new towers in downtown Manhattan, and we build our future as one people, as one nation."

He spoke for less than 15 minutes, beginning at 4 a.m. in Afghanistan, 7:30 p.m. on the East Coast of the United States. Minutes later, Air Force One was on its way back to Washington.

Obama flew to the site of America's longest war not only as commander in chief but also as an incumbent president in the early stages of a tough re-election campaign. Nor were the two roles completely distinct.

His presence was a reminder that since taking office in 2009, Obama has ended the war in Iraq and moved to create an orderly end for the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan.

In the political realm, he and Vice President Joe Biden have marked the one-year anniversary of bin Laden's death by questioning whether Republican challenge Romney would have ordered the daring raid that penetrated the terrorist leader's Pakistan hide-out. Republicans are accusing the president of trying for political gain from the event, and Romney is insisting that he would indeed have ordered U.S. forces into action.

The deal signed with Karzai does not commit the United States to any specific troop presence or spending. But it does allow the U.S. to potentially keep troops in Afghanistan after the war ends for two specific purposes: continued training of Afghan forces and targeted operations against al-Qaida. The terror group is present in neighboring Pakistan but has only a nominal presence inside Afghanistan.

Obama said the agreement was meant in part to pay tribute to the U.S. troops who have died in Afghanistan since the war began. He also underlined his message to Afghans.

"With this agreement I am confident that the Afghan people will understand that the United States will stand by them," he said.

Karzai said his countrymen "will never forget" the help of U.S. forces over the past decade. He said the partnership agreement shows the United States and Afghanistan will continue to fight terrorism together. The United States promises to seek money from Congress every year to support Afghanistan.

To the troops, he readily conceded continued hardship.

"I know the battle's not yet over," he said. "Some of your buddies are going to get injured. And some of your buddies may get killed. And there's going to be heartbreak and pain and difficulty ahead." He added that his administration is committed to ensuring that once the war is over, veterans will be given their due.

Officials have previously said as many as 20,000 U.S. troops may remain after the combat mission ends, but that still must still be negotiated.

The president's Tuesday night address was coming exactly one year after special forces, on his order, began the raid that led to the killing of bin Laden in Pakistan.

Since then, ties between the United States and Afghanistan have been tested anew by the burning of Muslim holy books at a U.S. base and the massacre of 17 civilians, including children, allegedly by an American soldier.

Obama had gone twice before to Afghanistan as president, most recently in December 2010, and once to Iraq in 2009. All such trips, no matter how carefully planned, carry the weight and the risks of considerable security challenges. Just last month, the Taliban began near-simultaneous assaults on embassies, government buildings and NATO bases in Kabul.

Besides the U.S. troops in Afghanistan, there are 40,000 in coalition forces from other nations.

Tehran, Iran (CNN) -- An Iranian non-profit company says it will honor U.S. President Barack Obama's request that Iran return a drone that crashed there last year.

But instead of the actual drone, the company says it will send miniature toy versions. A lot of them.

"We plan to send a full squadron of 12 to the White House for President Obama as a present," said Reza Kioumarsi, a spokesman for the Aaye Art Group, a Tehran-based non-profit, non-governmental company that makes novelty items.

The company is trying to determine what Obama's favorite color is before sending the drones, which are 1/80th the size of the real drone, Kioumarsi said.

In December, Obama said the U.S. has asked Iran to return the highly classified RQ-170 Sentinel drone.

"We've asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond," Obama said at the time.

This is probably not the response Obama was seeking.

Iran has said the country's armed forces had downed the drone near Kashmar, some 225 kilometers (140 miles) from the border with Afghanistan on December.

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gave a speech in December that seemed to suggest that Iran wouldn't return it.

"The North Americans at best have decided to give us this spy plane," Ahmadinejad said.

The RQ-170 Sentinel is one of the United States' most sophisticated drones and flies at up to 50,000 feet. It is designed to evade sophisticated air defenses.

One former intelligence official said it's "impossible to see" and discounted Iranian claims that it had been brought down by some form of electronic counter-measures. "It simply fell into their laps," he said -- after satellite communication was lost.

(Reuters) - Republican Mitt Romney acknowledged Tuesday that his income tax rate is "probably closer to 15 percent than anything," suggesting that one of the wealthiest people to ever run for U.S. president pays a much lower rate than most Americans.

His comment, a day after Romney agreed for the first time to release his tax returns -- but not until April when they are generally filed -- added fuel to his Republican rivals' calls for him to be more transparent about his finances.

It also drew fire from the Democratic White House and other critics, who said it reflected how Romney, whose estimated net worth is $270 million, is out of touch with the experiences and concerns of typical Americans.

Romney, a former private equity executive and Massachusetts governor, seemed to feed that narrative on Tuesday. He said that he gets speaker fees "from time to time, but not very much."

Annual campaign financial disclosure forms indicate that he was paid more than $374,000 in speaker fees from February 2010 to February 2011.

Romney's estimate of his income tax rate suggested that like many of the wealthiest Americans, he could earn a large chunk of his income from investments - much of it in capital gains.

Because capital gains generally are taxed at 15 percent compared with the top income tax rate of 35 percent on ordinary wages, those with significant income from capital gains often pay lower tax rates than many Americans.

Such disparity in the rates within the U.S. tax code are a sore point for many Americans, even some of the very rich whose rates are relatively low.

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett, for example, has said he paid $6.9 million in federal income taxes on $39.8 million in taxable income in 2010, a rate of 17.4 percent. Buffett has said it's unfair than his tax rate is lower than his secretary's.

Romney is the prohibitive favorite to win the Republican nomination and the right to face Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 6 elections.

On Tuesday, the White House moved quickly to portray Romney as an elitist, which almost certainly will be a theme of Obama's campaign this fall.

"Everybody who's working hard ought to pay their fair share" of taxes, the White House said in a statement. "That includes millionaires who might be paying an effective tax rate of 15 percent when folks making $50,000 or $75,000 or $100,000 a year are paying much more."

ROMNEY UNDER PRESSURE

Romney has long been reluctant to raise a curtain on his vast financial holdings.

In recent days, Romney's increasingly desperate rivals - former House of Representatives Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Governor Rick Perry - repeatedly have questioned whether Romney, in not releasing his tax returns, is hiding something.

Their calls for Romney to release his returns were echoed on Tuesday in a New York Times editorial, which called Romney's "insistence on secrecy impossible to defend now that he appears to be closing in on the nomination and questions have intensified about his personal finances."

During Monday night's Republican presidential debate in Myrtle Beach, Romney said, "I have nothing in (the returns) that suggests there's any problem and I'm happy to" release them around the federal tax filing deadline in mid-April.

"I sort of feel like we are showing a lot of exposure at this point," Romney added. "And if I become our nominee, and what's happened (with past presidential candidates) is people have released them in about April of the coming year, and that's probably what I would do."

FORTUNE INVESTED IN BAIN FUNDS

Tax analysts say Romney may have good reason to be reluctant to release his returns.

His vast fortune is invested in dozens of funds linked to Bain Capital LLC, the powerhouse private equity firm he co-founded and led for 15 years. Several Bain funds have offshore connections and take advantage of tax breaks used only by the U.S. financial elite.

His tax returns could shed light on how Romney and Bain use offshore strategies to avoid taxes, said Daniel Berman, a former U.S. Treasury deputy international tax counsel and now director of tax at Boston University's graduate tax program.

Bain funds in which Romney is invested are scattered from Delaware to the Cayman Islands and Bermuda, Ireland and Hong Kong, according to a Reuters analysis of securities filings.

"Certain interests in foreign investment structures would have to be reported on attachments to his return," Berman said.

On capital gains, Romney's tax returns would not reveal any gains that he has not yet realized, even though those gains would be easy for him to lock in at any time, Berman said.

"I remember as a young lawyer being surprised to see tax returns of very successful investors showing net losses - because they were recognizing net losses" but not yet factoring in unrealized gains, Berman said.

Romney's returns also might not spell out how much he benefits from a tax break used by private equity executives called the carried interest loophole.

This rule allows private equity and hedge fund managers to pay the 15 percent capital gains tax rate, rather than the top income tax rate, on a large portion of their earnings.

A SERIES OF ATTACKS

The demands by Gingrich and Perry are their latest attempt to draw attention to Romney's wealth.

They also echo Gingrich and Perry's criticism of Romney's time at Bain, which he left in 1999. Bain was involved in overhauling dozens of companies, and in some cases laid off thousands of workers.

Gingrich, Perry and others have portrayed Romney as a job killer and, as Perry put it, a "vulture" capitalist. The attacks don't seem to have worked, for Romney is still leading in most public opinion polls.

Gingrich continued to pound on the tax return theme Tuesday.

"It's interesting that Romney agreed that he ought to release his income taxes but he doesn't want to do it until April," by which time Romney could have clinched the Republican nomination, Gingrich said during an interview with CBS.

"I think the people of South Carolina ought to know now -- if there's nothing there, why hide it until April? And if there's something there, don't the people of South Carolina deserve to know before Saturday?"

Gingrich added that he would release his tax returns this week. As Texas governor, Perry has released his each year.

Gingrich and Perry are battling former Pennsylvania U.S. senator Rick Santorum to put together enough conservative votes to block Romney's march to the nomination.

Romney won the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary this month - the first two nomination contests - and is favored to win the South Carolina primary Saturday as well as Florida's primary on January 31.

Santorum, thought earlier this month to be Romney's main challenger, has not been as vocal in calls for Romney to release his tax returns.

A Santorum aide said that he was unsure whether Santorum would press Romney on the matter, but said, "We've been a pretty staunch advocate of airing out all the laundry now."

"We don't need any surprises," the aide said. "We need to know now."

The Romney campaign dismissed the latest calls to release his tax returns as a sign of desperation.

"This is pasta politics," Eric Fehrnstrom, a senior Romney adviser, said. Gingrich is "throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks."

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) -

U.S. employment growth accelerated last month and the jobless rate dropped to a near three-year low of 8.5 percent, the strongest evidence yet the economic recovery is gaining steam.

Nonfarm payrolls increased 200,000 in December, the Labor Department said on Friday. It was the biggest rise in three months and beat economists' expectations for a 150,000 gain.

The unemployment rate fell from a revised 8.7 percent in November to its lowest level since February 2009, a heartening sign for President Barack Obama whose re-election hopes could hinge on the state of the labor market.

"The labor market is healing, but we still have a long way to go to recoup the losses we have endured. We may be close to a tipping point where gains can become more self-feeding," said Diane Swonk, chief economist at Mesirow Financial in Chicago.

A string of better-than-expected U.S. data in recent weeks has highlighted a contrast between the recovery in the world's biggest economy and Europe, where the economy is widely believed to be contracting.

The jobs data was overshadowed in financial markets by concerns over Europe's debt crisis. U.S. stocks ended mostly down, while Treasury debt prices rose on safe-haven bids.

The dollar rose to a near 16-month high against the euro.

Republican presidential hopefuls have blasted Obama's economic policies as doing more harm than good.

The latest economic signs, however, could offer him some political protection.

The economy added 1.6 million jobs last year, the most since 2006, and the jobless rate, which peaked at 10 percent in October 2009, has dropped 0.6 percentage point in the last four months.

Obama welcomed the news and urged Congress to extend a two-month payroll tax cut through 2012 to help sustain the recovery.

"We're moving in the right direction. When Congress returns they should extend the middle-class tax cut for all of this year, to make sure we keep this recovery going," he said.

LONG ROAD BACK

Employment remains about 6.1 million below its pre-recession level and at December's pace of job growth, it would take about 2-1/2 years to win those jobs back. There are roughly 4.3 unemployed people for every job opening.

Unseasonably mild weather last month helped fuel a hefty gain in construction employment. Courier jobs also rose sharply, a move the Labor Department pinned on strong online shopping for the holiday season.

Those jobs could be lost in January and the unemployment rate might rise as Americans who had abandoned the hunt for work are lured back into the labor market.

The drop in the jobless rate was mostly due to strong hiring. The labor force shrank only modestly.

A broad measure of unemployment, which includes people who want to work but have stopped looking and those working only part time but who want more work, dropped to an almost three-year low of 15.2 percent from 15.6 percent in November.

Still, all told, 23.7 million Americans are either out of work or underemployed.

With the labor market still far from healthy, the debt crisis in Europe unresolved and tensions over Iran threatening to drive up oil prices, the U.S. economy faces stiff headwinds.

FED STILL IN PLAY

Economists predict the recovery will lose a step early this year after expanding in the fourth quarter at what is expected to be the fastest pace in 1-1/2 years.

While the prospect of a further easing of monetary policy was damped a bit by the jobs data, the shaky outlook means a third round of asset purchases by the Federal Reserve remains an option.

"The Fed will be watching for further credible evidence that this improving trend is gaining traction," said Anthony Karydakis, chief economist at Commerzbank in New York.

New York Federal Reserve Bank President William Dudley on Friday suggested the U.S. central bank was still leaning toward buying more bonds to pull borrowing costs lower, describing the recovery as "frustratingly slow" and the unemployment rate as "unacceptably high."

"I believe it is also appropriate to continue to evaluate whether we could provide additional (policy) accommodation," said Dudley.

GOVERNMENT A DRAG

All the job gains in December came from the private sector, where payrolls rose 212,000 - the most in three months.

Government employment contracted 12,000, with most of the drag coming from local government layoffs. However, the pace of government job losses is moderating as some states report revenue growth after years of being in the red.

For all of 2011, the private sector added 1.9 million jobs, while government employment fell 280,000. A measure of the share of industries that showed job gains during the month rebounded to a five-month high in December after diving in November.

Construction payrolls increased 17,000 after falling 12,000 in November as mild weather has boosted groundbreaking for new homes.

Transportation and warehousing employment jumped 50,200. The bulk of the rise came from the messenger industry, which added 42,000 jobs, reflecting an increase in deliveries of online purchases made during the holiday season.

Manufacturing jobs rose 23,000, the largest increase since July. Factory employment rose 225,000 last year, sustaining gains for the first time since 1997.

But there were soft spots in retail, where payrolls growth slowed to 27,900 after hefty gains in November as retailers geared up for a busy holiday shopping season.

Temporary hiring, seen as a harbinger of future hiring, fell for the first time June, dropping 7,500 in December after gaining 11,200.

Hourly earnings rose a modest four cents, indicating that most of the jobs being created are low paying.

This is a potentially troubling sign for consumer spending, which has been largely supported by a reduction in savings, although it also signals a lack of inflation pressure.

"Firms need to grow wages faster if consumption is to accelerate. There is not a lot of appetite to give raises," said Joel Naroff, chief economist at Naroff Economic Advisors in Holland, Pennsylvania.

(Reuters) - President Barack Obama signed into law a two-month payroll tax cut extension on Friday, capping a year of fierce partisan combat over taxes and spending that will resume in January and play heavily in the 2012 elections.

The Senate and the House of Representatives, by voice votes in chambers nearly emptied for the holidays, passed a $33 billion (21 billion pounds) bill to keep the payroll tax rate at 4.2 percent through February. It had been scheduled to increase on January 1 to 6.2 percent. Obama swiftly signed the bill.

"We have a lot more work to do," the president said at the White House. "This continues to be a make-or-break moment for the middle class ... There are going to be some important debates next year."

Obama heads to vacation in Hawaii with an important political win in his portfolio after he and fellow Democrats prevailed in the message war by backing lower taxes for middle-class Americans in the midst of a fragile economic recovery.

The battle took a toll on House Republicans led by Speaker John Boehner, who were forced to make an embarrassing retreat and agree to a short-term deal Thursday after getting hit by critics on all sides, include their colleagues in the Senate.

The temporary fix lets lawmakers lower the curtain, for now, on a year of political deadlock that in the end produced only a series of inconclusive truces. The fiscal policy debate is set to rage straight through the 2012 election season and beyond.

While Congress is on a long winter break now and does not return to full swing until late January, newly appointed negotiators are expected to begin work soon on figuring out how to pay for extending the payroll tax cut through 2012.

Republicans have sought a continued freeze on federal worker pay and cuts in Medicare benefits for the wealthy. Democrats have rejected both ideas while proposing a surtax on the wealthy to cover the extension's cost. Republicans reject this.

Both sides have been open to cutting federal workers' pension benefits. There also were last-minute Senate negotiations last week on possibly ending some tax breaks for the wealthy, such as a small one involving corporate jets.

Minutes after the bipartisan deal was passed by Congress, the bickering that has come to dominate Capitol Hill resumed.

Republican Representative Tom Price, a leader of House conservatives, immediately criticized the short-term extension, calling it a "two-month punt" and saying it would not have been needed if Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Democrat, and Obama had "been willing to do their job today."

'NOTHING OFF THE TABLE'

In a sign that the battle is far from over, Reid signaled that Democrats could renew their push for a surtax on wealthier Americans. Democrats had dropped that demand during the year-end negotiations that produced the two-month deal.

"There is nothing off the table," he said.

Obama scored a victory in the payroll tax struggle over Tea Party conservatives in the House who tried to block the two-month extension. They backed down on Thursday in the face of bipartisan criticism, but they are not going away.

Representative Tim Huelskamp, a first-term Republican, said on CNN that he was disappointed with Republican leadership caving in to pressure and accepting the two-month deal.

Next year could be a rough one for Boehner, the top House Republican, said Norm Ornstein, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Boehner spent 2011 having to negotiate with many of his own party members on just about every major piece of legislation.

Now that House Republicans have had to go along with Democrats in the payroll tax debate, "the idea that this group of angry Tea Party Republicans, who feel betrayed, now will go along or that Boehner will be more capable of defying them is a little bit wrong-headed," Ornstein said.

Meanwhile, Democrats might be emboldened, believing "they've learned to play poker," he added.

Patrick Griffin, associate director Of American University's Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies, said House Republicans "overplayed their hand. How they interpret that lesson will be very interesting."

Any edge conferred on Democrats might be short-lived, however. The 2012 election cycle is just set to kick off with the Iowa Republican presidential caucus on January 3 and a long road lies ahead until voters go to the polls in November.

The payroll tax funds the Social Security retirement pension system. If it had been allowed to rise, the increase would have hit the wallets of 160 million working Americans.

The $33 billion needed to pay for the two-month extension will be raised by increasing fees charged by housing finance giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac for guaranteeing mortgages.

Analysts said the fee hike, which investors will likely pass along to borrowers, could raise financing costs for mortgages, but probably not enough to slow a housing market recovery.

Unemployment benefits set to expire soon were extended as well, while cuts in payments to doctors who treat patients in the government-backed Medicare health insurance program for the elderly were postponed, under the bill signed by Obama.

Also included in it was a Republican initiative aiming to force the administration into fast approval of an oil pipeline opposed by environmentalists and many Democrats. The provision gives Obama 60 days to either approve TransCanada's Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to Gulf of Mexico facilities in Texas, or declare it not in the national interest.

Obama wants more time to evaluate the environmental impact of routing the pipeline through sensitive areas of Nebraska. The White House has said that if pushed for a decision within 60 days, the administration would be forced to reject the project.

Not extending the payroll tax cut, analysts warned, could have jeopardized the recovery, even risking another recession.

The modest two-month fix drew fire from some businesses that said it will complicate payroll processing and tax planning.

The payroll situation "could get more confusing," said Robert Gard, an accountant with Gard and LaFreniere LLC in Alpharetta, Georgia. If the tax is not extended at the end of February, businesses will need to reprogram software, he said.