US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta told troops in Afghanistan today that the decade-long war was at "a turning point", as Kabul reacted with fury to a NATO air strike that killed up to 18 civilians. Panetta arrived in the Afghan capital on his second visit in less than three months as President Hamid Karzai branded yesterday's air strike on a home in Logar province "unacceptable" and cut short a visit to China. 

The United States, which leads 130,000 NATO troops fighting a Taliban insurgency, is planning to withdraw the bulk of combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014 and hand responsibility for security to the Afghans. Panetta noted a recent "uptick" in violence and said a double suicide attack yesterday outside the largest NATO base in the south that killed 23 people was "much more organised than we've seen before". 

But the US defence chief sought to reassure soldiers that their sacrifices had not been in vain and Afghans that NATO's drawdown did not mean they would be abandoned. The post-2014 role, the size of which is yet to be determined, would include fighting "terrorism" and training and advising, he said. "We've lost a lot people in battle... We've got to make damn sure they didn't die in vain."