A looming US decision on troop drawdowns in Afghanistan could include a timeline for pulling out 30,000 "surge" forces deployed last year, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Sunday.

In a farewell visit to Afghanistan before stepping down as Pentagon chief, Gates indicated for the first time that President Barack Obama may be preparing to lay out a long-term plan for US troop levels over the next few years.

Obama is expected to reveal soon how many US troops will return home in July as control of security passes from foreign to Afghan troops in seven areas of the country.

The transfer marks the first phase of a handover due to conclude by 2015, by which time all foreign combat troops are supposed to have withdrawn.

Speaking to US Marines at a base in southern Afghanistan's Helmand province, near some of the war's worst battlefields, Gates said there were "two intermediate numbers that need to be resolved" as Obama weighs troop drawdowns.

"One is, what is the size of the reduction that will be announced in July?" he said. "But the other is, at what point do you bring home the surge (forces)?"

Obama sent an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan last year in a bid to gain the initiative in the war against Taliban-led insurgents which started in 2001, while vowing to begin pulling out forces by mid-2011.

The "surge" of US reinforcements implied a "temporary" move, said Gates, before asking: "So how long should the surge last?"

"And I think that is the second bookend, if you will, in the decision that I think the president is going to need to make over the course of the next few weeks," he added.

With public opposition to the war growing and patience in the US Congress wearing thin, Obama faces a difficult decision on troop numbers just as commanders say they are making headway.

The killing of Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by US Navy SEALs at his hideout in Pakistan last month has fuelled calls for a major withdrawal.

Gates said Saturday that a "modest" number of troops would likely be pulled out in July and argued for maintaining pressure on the insurgents to force them to the negotiating table -- possibly by the end of the year.

In another visit Sunday to a base on the outskirts of Kandahar city, Gates made clear he would prefer to first pull out support rather than combat troops, saying: "If it were up to me, I would leave the shooters for last."

However, he later acknowledged to reporters that withdrawal plans would have to draw from both support troops and combat units.

At the Kandahar city base, he told troops that "essentially you have ejected the Taliban from their home territory" over the past year.

Gates, due to leave Afghanistan on Tuesday, touted gains in districts around Kandahar city, the birthplace of the Taliban, though troops still face a battle to hold on to the areas.

An American commander in Kandahar, Colonel Jeffrey Martindale, told reporters travelling with Gates that a combined US-Afghan campaign over the past year had wiped out well-established Taliban bases in the Arghandab valley that had been ringed with homemade bombs.

The colonel said the focus was now on building up the local government, which was still lacking.

Gates, due to leave his job at the end of the month after four and a half years, said the main purpose of his trip was to say goodbye to the roughly 100,000 US troops stationed in Afghanistan as part of an international force.

The normally reserved Gates, a former CIA director and Washington heavyweight, struggled to contain his emotions as he thanked the troops and spoke of the burden of sending young men and women to war.

His voice cracking, Gates said: "You will be in my thoughts and prayers the rest of my life."

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