US President Barack Obama has ordered all 33,000 US 'surge troops' home from Afghanistan by next summer.
Over 68,000 US troops will remain in Afghanistan beyond 2012 -Afghan forces plan to assume security responsibility in 2014.
In his address last night, Mr Obama also significantly curtailed US war aims, saying Washington would no longer try to build a 'perfect' Afghanistan from a nation traumatised by its history.
'Tonight, we take comfort in knowing that the tide of war is receding,' Mr Obama said in a 13-minute primetime speech.
'Even as there will be dark days ahead in Afghanistan, the light of a secure peace can be seen in the distance. These long wars will come to a responsible end,' Mr Obama said.
The president argued US forces had made large strides towards the objectives of the troop surge strategy he ordered in December 2009 by reversing Taliban momentum, crushing al-Qaeda and training new Afghan forces.
But he rejected appeals from the Pentagon for a slower drawdown to safeguard gains against the Taliban and his decision will be seen as a political defeat for General David Petraeus.
Mr Obama said he would, as promised, begin the US withdrawal this July and that 10,000 of the more than 30,000 troops he committed to the escalation of the conflict would be home this year.
A further 23,000 surge troops will be withdrawn by next summer, and more yet-to-be announced drawdowns will continue, until Afghan forces assume security responsibility in 2014.
'This is the beginning - but not the end - of our effort to wind down this war,' Mr Obama said.
The announcement comes at a time of rising fatigue over costly foreign wars among Americans ground down by deep economic insecurity.
Decision was not what Petreus recommended
General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Afghanistan, said he had recommended a slower drawdown than Mr Obama had decided upon, but backed the decision and said no military commander in history gets ‘all the forces he would like to have, for all the time.’
‘The ultimate decision was a more aggressive formulation, if you will, in terms of the timeline than what we had recommended,’ Gen Petraeus told a Senate hearing on his nomination to become CIA director.
‘Again, that is understandable in the sense that there are broader considerations beyond just those of a military commander.’
Taliban dismisses 'symbolic step'
The Taliban has dismissed President Obama's announcement as 'only as a symbolic step'.
The Taliban 'considers this announcement, which currently withdraws 10,000 soldiers this year, only as a symbolic step which will never satisfy the war-weary international community or the American people,' it said.
It accused the US of 'repeatedly giving false hopes to its nation about ending this war and claiming baselessly about victory'.
More than 1,600 US soldiers have died in Afghanistan since the US invasion.
The US death toll already this year stands at 187.
Despite Pentagon appeals for a more modest drawdown, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates quickly said he supported the plan.
'It provides our commanders with enough resources, time and, perhaps most importantly, flexibility to bring the surge to a successful conclusion,' the outgoing Pentagon chief said in a statement.
France, Germany and Poland have also said they would proceed with a gradual drawdown.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that he would oversee a pullout 'in a proportional manner and in a calendar comparable to the withdrawal of American reinforcements'.
France's 4,000-strong contingent is the fourth largest in Afghanistan.
German Defence Minister Guido Westerwelle said his country, with 4,800 troops in the increasingly violent north, hoped by the end of the year 'to be able to reduce our own troop contingent for the first time'.
The head of Poland's National Security Bureau, General Stanislaw Koziej, said that Warsaw's strategy 'is similar to Obama's as we will begin reducing our presence this year and by 2014 withdraw entirely'.
Poland has about 2,500 troops in Afghanistan.
