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International troops will continue to train, advise and assist the afghans and fight along side them when needed. but we will shift into a support role as afghans step forward. as we do, our troops will be coming home. 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 and 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. second, we are training afghan security forces to...

>> reporter: yeah, you can add to that senior u.s. official, you can also add to that chinese state media. now remember, andrew, that this has befr benever been reported. ever since chen guangcheng fled last week after 18 months on house arrest, that has never been reported in state media. that has all changed in the last few minutes. xinhua, state-run media, is now confirming this. chen has left the embassy of his own volition, and they're demanding the u.s. apologize to china for one of its citizens being allowed to enter the u.s. embassy in beijing. so china taking a tough line he...

spring offensive. that threat follows this deadly attack in kabul but a taliban suicide bomber two hours after president obama left afghanistan and the taliban claiming it's just a sign of things to come. let's go straight to nick payton walsh in kabul. when the taliban says spring offensive, tell us exactly what that means. >> reporter: well, something they were talking about two weeks ago but today their statements shortly after barack obama left made it clear they consider it a new operation ahead of them. something they called al faruq, an arabic term referring between a person w...

the zone. from there he quickly went by chopper to kabul, another war zone where him and president hamid karsai signed the strategic partnership agreement. it promises american support for afghanistan through 2024. ten years after the last american combat forces are scheduled to leave the country by the end of 2012. excuse me, 2014. the president made some brief remarks, then headed back to bagram for a rally with the troops. more than 130,000 men and women serve in afghanistan. the vast majority, about 90,000 are american right now. a short time later, about half an hour ago the pre...

Coming off the helmet of the victorious army. how can we be in a new support role, the role of the president, of the afghan security forces, how can we be a successful back up and another phrase he used to a government and army we may not be able to rely on? >> and what happens if it doesn't work? i guess that's the big question. six years in fr now, still in the time lien he outlined, no effective afghan government. are we going to build back up to try to bring stability? i don't know if a president would have the option of doing that. i think we know from polling from americans felt if t was...