Just over one third of the 100,000 U.S. troops stationed in Afghanistan will be brought back within 15 months (some 10,000 will leave this year with another 23,000 returnng just in time for the election). The draw-down, which will take a number of years, is still more rapid than his military commanders have advised (General David Petraeus, just named CIA chief, and Defense Secretary Robert Gates, have both publicy endorsed slow withdrawals. Obama mentioned neither Gates nor Petraeus in his speech).

GOP Response: (via Huffington Post) Some of Republican leaders have criticized Obama with reference to the advice of these military commanders. “This is not the ‘modest’ withdrawal that I and others had hoped for and advocated,” John McCain said, while the Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell declared that “the drawdown of forces described by the president needs to be conducted in a manner that respects the professional judgment of our military commanders, preserves the security gains of the last year and allows for a slower pace of withdrawal if necessary.”

A number of GOP presidential hopefuls towed this line too: Mitt Romney said, “This decision should not be based on politics or economics… I look forward to hearing the testimony of our military commanders in the days ahead”; Herman Cain responded, “Sadly, I fear President Obama’s decision could embolden our enemy and endanger our troops.”

Some GOP candidates argued against Obama’s plan using similar reasoning, but with rhetoric steeped in American exceptionalism: “President Obama speaks of winding down our engagement in Afghanistan, but he does not emphasize the need for victory,” said Sen. Rick Santorum, while Tim Pawlenty said (and then tweeted), “When America goes to war, America needs to win.”

And then, the members of the growing cadre of Republicans pushing for an even faster troop withdrawal spoke out too: Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson said, “reducing troop numbers to pre-surge levels, and taking a year to do it, is not acceptable to the growing number of Americans, like me, who get the reality that there is no compelling reason to risk another life or another dollar in a conflict that has no end”; and, unsurprisingly, libertarian Rep. Ron Paul’s 2012 campaign chairman commented, “This move is too little, too late.”

(Our own Andrew Leonard, riffing on the argument for swift withdrawal based on spending, points out that we cannot afford to stay at war, but that the withdrawal plan will barely touch the deficit: Thirty-three thousand troops by next summer adds up to around $15 billion [in savings] — or about 1 percent of the U.S.’s $1.5 trillion deficit. This peace dividend isn’t going to result in a budget surplus any time soon.”)

Democratic response: Democratic House leader Nancy Pelosi expressed the views of many in her party, saying “It has been the hope of many in Congress and across the country that the full drawdown of US forces would happen sooner than the president laid out, and we will continue to press for a better outcome.” Senator Barbara Boxer, agreed, noting: “I am glad this war is ending, but it’s ending at far too slow a pace.”

International response: Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, called the drawdown “a good measure,” Politico reports. He admitted the Afghan security would in turn need to be strengthened. A representative from the Taliban also responded to Obama’s speech with a rare English statement. “Our armed struggle will increase from day to day,” he said.

According to the Guardian, British prime minister David Cameron “welcomed” Obama’s plan and commented “I have already said there will be no UK troops in combat roles in Afghanistan by 2015 and, where conditions on the ground allow, it is right that we bring troops home sooner.” France’s Nicolas Sarkozy announced too that France would follow the United States with a gradual draw-down of the 4,000 French troops stationed in Afghanistan. German Foreign Minister, Guido Westerwelle, said his country plans to start to reduce its contingent of 5,000 armed forces by the end of this year.

Watch Obama’s address East Room address, via WhiteHouse.gov:

Three men dressed in Afghan army uniforms stormed the police station near the presidential palace and opened fire on officers, said Mohammed Honayon, a witness. The Interior Ministry said in a statement that one of the attackers detonated a suicide bomb vest outside the gates while the others rushed in and began shooting.

The crackle of gunfire echoed through the streets typically bustling with shoppers and government employees on a Saturday, the start of Afghanistan’s work week. The fighting ended by 3 p.m. when security forces shot dead the two other attackers. Three police officers, one intelligence agent and five civilians were killed in the attack, the Interior Ministry said.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message to The Associated Press, saying the group dispatched three suicide bombers.

The assault occurred shortly after Karzai announced during a speech at the presidential palace that his government and the U.S. have begun preliminary negotiations with the Taliban aimed at ending the conflict.

“In the course of this year, there have been peace talks with the Taliban and our own countrymen,” Karzai said. “Peace talks have started with them already and it is going well. Foreign militaries, especially the United States of America, are going ahead with these negotiations.”

Karzai said some of the Taliban emissaries that have met with members of the peace council he set up were only representing themselves, while others were speaking for the broader movement. The exact nature of the contacts was not immediately clear, and further details were not available.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Attacks in the Afghan capital have been relatively rare, although violence has increased since the May 2 killing of Osama bin Laden in a U.S. raid in Pakistan and the start of the Taliban’s annual spring offensive.

The capital is one of seven regions scheduled to be handed over to Afghan security control in late July — part of NATO’s efforts to begin transferring security responsibilities ahead of its planned 2014 withdrawal from the country. The U.S. also plans to start drawing down troops in July.

The last major attack in Kabul took place last month when a suicide bomber wearing an Afghan police uniform infiltrated the main Afghan military hospital in late May, killing six medical students. A month before that, a suicide attacker in an army uniform sneaked past security at the Afghan Defense Ministry, killing three.

Associated Press writers Ahmad Seir and Amir Shah contributed to this report.

Attacks have increased in Afghanistan since bin Laden’s death and since the start of the Taliban’s yearly spring offensive. On Monday, four NATO service members were killed in an explosion in the east, NATO said in a statement. The military alliance did not provide details on the attack or the nationalities of the dead.

Most of those with knowledge of the Taliban organization say Omar is hiding in southern Pakistan, around Quetta or Karachi.

Afghan news channel Tolo quoted an anonymous Afghan intelligence official as saying Omar had been shot dead in Pakistan while being moved from Quetta to North Waziristan with the help of former Pakistani intelligence chief Gen. Hamid Gul.

North Waziristan is a tribal area home to militants whose primary focus is attacking U.S. and NATO troops across the border in Afghanistan.

A Pakistani intelligence official said that there was no information to suggest the report of Omar’s death was true. He spoke anonymously because of the sensitivity of the subject. U.S. and NATO officials said they had heard the report from Tolo but had no information to confirm or deny it.

Gul told the AP that the story was false.

“This is propaganda, sheer deception, disinformation,” Gul said. “I have never met him. I’ve never seen him. No contact whatsoever.”

Afghanistan’s leaders accuse Pakistan’s intelligence services of aiding Taliban and other insurgents fighting international and Afghan troops in the country, even as Islamabad battles the allied Pakistani Taliban at home.

Similar suspicions of collusion were raised after the raid on bin Laden, whose hiding place in a military town near the Pakistani capital led some to believe at least some Pakistani authorities must have known where he was. Pakistan denies that.

Latifullah Mashal, a spokesman for the Afghan intelligence agency, said Omar and some Taliban commanders had disappeared four or five days ago while moving from Quetta to North Waziristan. Mashal suggested that “maybe an incident has happened along the way,” but emphasized that officials had no further information about the fate of the Taliban leader.

“We can confirm he’s been disappeared from his hide-out,” Mashal told reporters in Kabul.

Mashal said that Afghan’s intelligence agency had shared information about Omar’s whereabouts “more than 30 times” with neighboring countries, especially Pakistan. He said he didn’t know how that information had been used during Omar’s more than a decade in hiding.

“Most of the allies are honest, some are not,” the spokesman said.

Pakistan’s foreign minister, meanwhile, arrived in Kabul to meet with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. His discussions with Afghan and U.S. officials were expected to focus on how the three countries could work together to fight terrorism, improve economic ties and forge peace in Afghanistan.

Obama told the BBC in an interview broadcast Sunday that he could not allow “active plans to come to fruition without us taking some action,” and would send troops again if a senior Taliban leader were found in Pakistan.

Pakistan is furious that that United States sent Navy SEALs to raid bin Laden’s Pakistan hideaway earlier this month without informing Pakistani authorities in advance.

But there are also parallel efforts to get the Taliban leadership into negotiations with the Afghan government, making it unclear if such a strike would be in the interest of the American or Afghan governments.

The Taliban have stepped up attacks as part of their yearly offensive against NATO, Afghan government installations and officials. Insurgents also have promised revenge attacks after the killing of bin Laden.

The Taliban claimed they were behind an attack Saturday on the main military hospital in Kabul that killed at least six Afghan medical students.

On Monday, however, NATO spokesman Brig. Gen. Josef Blotz told journalists that intelligence sources showed the Taliban-allied Haqqani network planned and carried out the suicide attack on the nation’s top medical facility.

Also Monday, a suicide bomber attacked a gathering of tribal leaders in eastern Laghman province, killing four tribal elders and wounding 14 others having lunch at a hotel, governor’s spokesman Faizanullah Patan said.

Associated Press writers Jon Gambrell in Kabul and Nahal Toosi in Islamabad contributed to this report.

“We have done this to avenge the Abbottabad incident,” Ahsanullah Ahsan, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, told The Associated Press in a phone call. He warned that the group was also planning attacks on Americans living inside Pakistan.

The bombers blew themselves up in Shabqadar at the main gate of the facility for the Frontier Constabulary, a poorly equipped but front-line force in the battle against al-Qaida and allied Islamist groups like the Pakistani Taliban close to the Afghan border. Like other branches of Pakistan’s security forces, it has received U.S. funding to try to sharpen its skills.

At least 80 people were killed, including 66 recruits, and around 120 people were wounded, said police officer Liaqat Ali Khan.

Around 900 young men were leaving the center after spending six months of training there. They were in high spirits and looking forward to seeing their families, for which some had brought gifts, a survivor said.

Some people were sitting inside public minivans and others were loading luggage atop the vehicles when the bombers struck, witnesses said.

“We were heading toward a van when the first blast took place and we fell on the ground and then there was another blast,” said 21-year-old Rehmanullah Khan. “We enjoyed our time together, all the good and bad weather and I cannot forget the cries of my friends before they died.”

The scene was littered with shards of glass mixed with blood and flesh. The explosions destroyed at least 10 vans.

It was the first major militant attack in Pakistan since bin Laden’s death on May 2, and the deadliest this year.

Militants had pledged to avenge the killing and launch reprisal strikes in Pakistan.

The Taliban spokesman also suggested the attack was aimed as punishment against Pakistani authorities for failing to stop the unilateral U.S. raid that killed bin Laden, something that has sparked popular nationalist and Islamist anger.

“The Pakistani army has failed to protect its land,” Ahsan said.

In its communications, the Taliban often tries to tap into popular sentiments in the country, where anti-Americanism is often stronger than feelings against Islamist militants. This is despite militant attacks over the last four years claiming the lives of many hundreds, if not thousands, of civilians.

Some 350 lawyers sympathetic with Islamists attended special prayers for bin Laden on the premises of the provincial high court in the eastern city of Lahore on Friday. The lawyers cursed the May 2 raid, chanting “Down with America.”

The explosive vests used in Friday’s attacks were packed with ball bearings and nails, police said.

Police official Nisar Khan said a suicide bomber in his late teens or early 20s set off one of the blasts.

“The first blast occurred in the middle of the road, and after that there was a huge blast that was more powerful than the first,” said Abdul Wahid, a 25-year-old recruit whose legs were wounded in the blasts.

He said he was knocked to the ground by the force of the explosions.

“After falling, I just started crawling and dragging myself to a safer place … along the wall of a roadside shop,” he said.

The Sept. 11 mastermind and at least four others were killed by U.S. Navy SEALs who raided bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, a garrison city not far from the capital. Bin Laden is believed to have lived in the large house for up to six years.

Pakistani officials have denied knowing he was there but have criticized the American raid ordered by President Barack Obama as a violation of their country’s sovereignty. To counter allegations that Pakistan had harbored bin Laden, the officials have pointed out that many thousands of Pakistani citizens, and up to 3,000 of its security forces, have died in suicide bombings and other attacks since Sept. 11, 2001, when Islamabad became an ally of the U.S. in taking on Islamist extremists.

Many of the attacks in Pakistan have targeted security forces, but government buildings, religious minorities, public places and Western targets have also been hit.

——

Associated Press writers Ashraf Khan and Deb Riechmann in Islamabad, Babar Dogar in Lahore and Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan contributed to this report.