BAGRAM AIR FIELD, AFGHANISTAN—U.S President Barack Obama on Friday told U.S. troops they were making “important progress” against militants in Afghanistan, after he ramped up force levels to widen the Afghan military campaign.

“Today we can be proud that there are fewer areas under Taliban control,” Obama said during an address to nearly 4,000 troops here after a secret overnight flight from Washington.

Obama slipped unannounced into dangerous Afghanistan on Friday, one year after widening an ever deadlier war and just days before a pivotal review about the 9-year-plus conflict.

Plans for a face-to-face meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai were scrapped at the last minute. Instead, the two leaders spoke by phone, Obama at the airbase and Karzai in Kabul.

Under intense security, Obama landed in darkness after a clandestine departure from the White House on Thursday, where plans of his trip into the war zone were tightly guarded. Obama stepped off Air Force One just after 8:30 p.m. local time.

He was to personally thank U.S. troops for their service during the holidays.

The White House said rough weather forced the president to abruptly drop plans to meet Karzai in Kabul. The White House determined the wind, dust and cloud cover made it unsafe for the president to fly by helicopter from the huge military complex here to the presidential palace.

In a rapidly changing sequence of events, the White House then said the two would speak by secure video conference — then said that, too, was dropped.

In total, Obama was to spend three hours on the ground in Afghanistan, about half the time he had scheduled.

His visit to thank troops came ahead of an upcoming full review of his war plan later this month. On the flight, the White House said the review would include no major policy changes.

The secret trip had been in the works for more than a month. National Security aide Ben Rhodes said Obama wanted to go to Afghanistan between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

“It’s always tough to serve in harm’s way but when you’re away from loved ones in the holiday season it’s particularly hard, and the president wanted the ability to come out and have some time with them,” Rhodes said.

Rhodes said the scrapping of the personal visit with Karzai would not have consequences because the two just met at a NATO summit in Lisbon two weeks ago.

Obama’s visit comes at a particularly awkward moment in already strained U.S. relations with Afghanistan. Leaked U.S. cables show American diplomats portraying Afghanistan as rife with graft to the highest levels of government, with tens of millions of dollars flowing out of the country and a cash transfer network that facilitates bribes for corrupt Afghan officials, drug traffickers and insurgents.

The war in Afghanistan is the nation’s longest after Vietnam, launched in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The president’s visit comes nearly a year to the day after he announced he was sending an additional 30,000 troops to try to gain control — and then get the United States out — of a worsening conflict.

Obama and Karzai met less than two weeks ago at a NATO summit in Portugal. The two leaders and their governments need each other but share a blunt and at times contentious partnership, tested by questions of trust and the high costs of war.

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The U.S. now has about 100,000 forces in Afghanistan, a record total. More than 1,300 U.S. forces have died here since the war began, and more of them in 2010 than in any other year as the fight against the Taliban has grown even fiercer.

Obama’s plan is to start pulling U.S. forces out of Afghanistan in July. The goal is to shift control to Afghan authorities by the end of 2014, a deadline embraced by NATO partners, who have 40,000 of their own forces in harm’s way.

With files from Associated Press

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