Signalling the outcome of a White House review of the war due out this month, Gates said his visit to key battlefronts over two days confirmed that the Taliban was losing ground and under mounting pressure.

"I will go back convinced that our strategy is working and that we will be able to achieve key goals set out by President Barack Obama last year" and endorsed by NATO allies at a November summit, Gates told a joint press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"The bottom line is that in the last 12 months, we've come a long way, making progress that even just in the last few months has exceeded my expectations," he said.

US officials and commanders have suggested for months that they will stick with the current strategy, but Gates' emphatic public comments -- his strongest to date -- leave little doubt that Washington will maintain its massive troop presence with no major withdrawal on the horizon.

The strategy involves nearly 100,000 US troops plus more than 40,000 allied forces, engaged in a bloody, painstaking counter-insurgency fight as well as a costly effort to train and arm the Afghan army and police.

The approach is aimed at pushing back the Taliban from towns in the south and east while building up Afghan forces and local governments.

The deaths of two more NATO soldiers on Wednesday underscored the high cost of the nine-year-old war, and it remains far from clear whether the strategy will force the Taliban to sue for peace.

The NATO losses brought the number of foreign troops killed in 2010 to 682, according to an AFP tally based on the independent icasualties.org website.

The alliance lost 521 troops in 2009.

Gates acknowledged the rising death toll, saying NATO leaders had warned the surge would mean more combat and a temporary spike in casualties.

"But there is no denying that the security climate is improving and that the sacrifices of Afghan and coalition troops are achieving greater safety and security for both our nations," Gates said.

Earlier, the Pentagon chief paid a visit to the mainly Pashtun southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, where the military believes the outcome of the war will be decided.

Commanders who met with Gates told reporters the insurgents had been pushed out of most of the key population centres in Helmand province, where thousands of Marines have deployed, and that a months-long campaign had secured roads and towns west of Kandahar city.

Members of the 101st Airborne had "cleared" the Taliban from a main route and nearby areas in Zari district west of Kandahar city, and forced them out of Sang Sar, a town known as the birthplace of the Islamist insurgency, officers said.

Senior officers in Helmand and Kandahar said the security gains would pave the way for an eventual handover to Afghan forces in some districts next year, in line with allied plans.

NATO leaders at a summit last month in Lisbon endorsed plans for the beginning of a "transition" to Afghan forces providing security across the country in 2011, with an aim of ending the combat mission by the end of 2014.

Obama has promised to start the drawdown of some troops by July next year, though officials suggested only a small number would depart.

As Gates hailed the fruits of the US troop buildup, a video emerged purportedly released by the Taliban and appearing to show Bowe Bergdahl, the US soldier captured in Afghanistan in June 2009.

The IntelCenter monitoring group said the video contains brief "new footage" of someone who appears to be Bergdahl and another who seems to be "Taliban commander Maulawi Sangin", who had threatened to kill Bergdahl in July 2009.

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