United States President, Barack Obama’s secret visit to Afghanisatan on the death anniversary of Osama bin Laden on Wednesday resulted in retaliation by Taliban bombers attacking a fortified guesthouse being used by Westerners in Kabul. They have announced the start of their “spring offensive,” defying the calls from Obama about ending war.

Mr. Obama signed a new partnership pact with Afghanistan President, Hamid Karzai, cementing 10 years of United States aid for Afghanisatan after Nato combat troops leave in 2014.

Talibans dismissed the Afghan – US pact as “illegitimate.”

Seven people were killed including two Afghan school children in the attack. The attackers disguised in burqas detonated a suicide car bomb and clashed with guards at the “Green Village” complex used by the European Union, the United Nations and aid groups.

Mr Obama, in an election year address, presented himself as a commander-in-chief capable of ending two long wars, following the US withdrawal from Iraq, and crushing Al Qaeda, and tried to conjure up a new dawn for a US public exhausted by conflict and recession.

“This time of war began in Afghanistan, and this is where it will end,” Mr Obama said, recalling a decade-long “dark cloud of war” after Osama bin Laden plotted the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Mr Obama also said, “Yet here, in the pre-dawn darkness of Afghanistan, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon.”

The Taliban said Mr Karzai had no right to sign the deal and accused him of “selling” Afghan sovereignty to the Americans.

“We look forward to a future of peace. We’re agreeing to be long-term partners,” Mr Obama said at Mr Karzai’s palace.(msn)