KABUL—The U.S. strategy in Afghanistan suffered a double blow on Thursday, as President Hamid Karzai made a surprise demand that the U.S. and its allies pull their troops from villages into bases, and the Taliban said they suspended their negotiations with the U.S.

Mr. Karzai's request, issued after a meeting with U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in Kabul, demands a virtual end to the U.S. combat role in Afghanistan more than a year ahead of schedule, derailing U.S. military campaign plans just as the annual fighting season begins.

The Afghan president made the move amid widespread outcry over the shooting on Sunday of 16 Afghan civilians, most of them women and children, allegedly by a rogue U.S. Army staff sergeant. The U.S. on Wednesday angered Afghan officials, who had pressed for a public trial in Afghanistan, by flying the suspect to Kuwait.

Pursuing a political settlement with the Taliban while gradually transferring security responsibilities to Afghan forces are the twin pillars of President Barack Obama's strategy for winding down the war in Afghanistan. Both approaches were undermined on Thursday by the near simultaneous statements from Mr. Karzai and the Taliban high command.

The Taliban, whose representatives have held discussions with U.S. officials for months, said they were suspending the process because the U.S. "turned back on their promises," such as exchanging senior Taliban officials held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for a Western prisoner in Taliban hands. U.S. officials say no decision had been made on the Guantanamo detainees.

U.S. officials played down the significance of Mr. Karzai's statement. A senior defense official said Mr. Panetta's meeting with Mr. Karzai wasn't contentious, and that the Afghan president didn't demand an immediate pullout from the villages during the talks in Kabul.

"We believe the statement reflects President Karzai's strong interest in moving forward with sovereign Afghanistan as soon as possible," said Pentagon press secretary George Little. "We share President Karzai's interest. We believe it needs to be done in a responsible manner."

An Afghan official explained on Thursday that Mr. Karzai believed that coalition force presence in the Afghan countryside now causes more harm than good.

"When he said they must be withdrawn from the villages now, he didn't mean tomorrow or next month, but he meant that they must be redeployed to big bases as soon as practicable," the official said.

He added that the Afghan government still wanted the coalition forces to act in support of the Afghan troops when necessary.

Mr. Obama on Wednesday affirmed plans to shift U.S. forces to an advisory role next year—a shift that would give Afghan forces the lead in combat operations, but wouldn't remove all U.S. troops from combat. Mr. Obama plans to pull out most of the 90,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan by late 2014.

Many in Afghanistan reacted with shock to Mr. Karzai's statement. "We totally don't understand Karzai's decision. He doesn't have any strategy. He is committing treason," said Abdulrahim Ayubi, a lawmaker from the southern Kandahar province, where Sunday's massacre occurred.

One U.S.-led coalition official described Mr. Karzai's request as a "bombshell."

A Western official said Mr. Karzai's demand for a coalition troop pullback "represents the sense of frustration, not necessarily the common sense," adding that the Afghan president understands it is unattainable in the immediate future. A senior U.S. defense official said allied commanders aren't planning any changes in coalition deployments.

As part of the transition process, the U.S. and Afghanistan are negotiating a strategic partnership pact on what American presence will remain in the country after 2014.

Partnership talks have stumbled over the issue of night raids of villages by U.S. Special Operations Forces, with Mr. Karzai insisting that such raids must stop immediately. Military officials argue that the tactic is crucial in the war against the Taliban.

Mr. Karzai has repeatedly demanded an end to such raids in the past, and on Thursday went even further. "Not a single foreign soldier should enter Afghan homes, and the entire attention should switch to the country's reconstruction and economic assistance," his statement said.

While calling on the U.S.-led coalition to transfer security responsibilities "by 2013 instead of 2014," Mr. Karzai also said "Afghanistan is right now ready to completely take all security responsibilities, so we demand a speedy transition and the hand-over of authority to the Afghans."

Some analysts said they thought that Mr. Karzai made the demands as a ploy to strengthen his hand in negotiations with the U.S. over the strategic partnership agreement.

If so, he may have badly miscalculated, said Candace Rondeaux, a Kabul-based senior analyst at the International Crisis Group think tank. "Karzai in some ways has overestimated his hand," she said. "There is extreme frustration on both sides and the trust deficit will only widen as the result."

Mr. Karzai is likely to quietly drop his demand for an immediate troop pullback "when he confronts the reality of what those moves would likely mean for Afghanistan's overall security situation," said Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a think-tank close to the Obama administration.

The Taliban, meanwhile, said they intend to keep fighting until the last foreign soldier leaves the country. The insurgents, who say they refuse to negotiate with Mr. Karzai, added that they were upset that Mr. Karzai claimed, in a Wall Street Journal interview last month, that he had begun joint peace talks with the U.S. and the Taliban.

The insurgents said the only issues on the negotiating table with the U.S. were the prisoner exchange and the opening of a Taliban office in the Persian Gulf emirate of Qatar. The talks were postponed "until the Americans clarify their stance on the issues concerned and until they show willingness in carrying out their promises instead of wasting time," the Taliban said.

Western officials briefed on the talks say the Taliban, who thought they had reached a preliminary agreement on the prisoner exchange with the U.S., were surprised as Washington made new demands, such as including Mr. Karzai's administration in the process.

Plans for the transfer to Qatar of Taliban detainees at Guantanamo have met opposition in Congress, with Sen. John McCain, during a visit to Kabul last month, describing it as "a huge mistake."

The U.S. says that for the Taliban to open an office in Qatar, they must renounce international terrorism and support a political process involving all Afghans, the U.S. Embassy in Kabul said Thursday.

"We remain prepared to continue discussions," an embassy spokesman said. "We have only one goal, opening the door for Afghans to sit down with other Afghans to determine the future of Afghanistan."

Source: Wall Street Journal (USA)