Barack Obama Visits Troops In Afghanistan

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama met US troops in Afghanistan Saturday during a visit to assess efforts against extremist militants at the start of a major international tour, officials said.

US military commanders at the main US base at Bagram, north of Kabul, briefed Obama and other senators on the international effort against Taliban and other Islamic extremists, the US-led coalition said.

The delegation later flew to a base in eastern Afghanistan, closer to the border with Pakistan, where they met more of the 36,000 US soldiers in Afghanistan.

Obama was due to hold talks with President Hamid Karzai on Sunday, the Afghan government said.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee told reporters before leaving the United States that he was looking forward during his trip, which will also take him to Iraq, to seeing the situation on the ground.

"I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense, both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad of, you know, what ... their biggest concerns are. And I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they've been doing."

The Illinois senator said in the days building up to the tour that Afghanistan needs more help as it battles the Taliban-led insurgency.

If he wins the November elections, he has said he would commit at least two more combat brigades, up to 10,000 men, to Afghanistan while downscaling the size of the force in Iraq.

"We need more troops, more helicopters, better intelligence-gathering and more non-military assistance to accomplish the mission there," Obama said in The New York Times on Monday.

"Iraq is not the central front in the war on terrorism, and it never has been."

In a major foreign policy address on Tuesday, Obama reiterated his promise to get most US combat troops out of Iraq within 16 months, and to focus on Al-Qaeda havens in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"We cannot tolerate a terrorist sanctuary, and as president I won't," he said.

In a radio address Saturday to coincide with the visit, his Republican rival John McCain criticised Obama for announcing his strategy for Afghanistan and Iraq before his fact-finding tour.

"Apparently, he's confident enough that he won't find any facts that might change his opinion or alter his strategy -- remarkable," McCain said.

An extremist insurgency was launched in Afghanistan after the Taliban were removed from government in late 2001 in an invasion led by the United States.

The hardliners were attacked after they refused to hand over Al-Qaeda leaders for the 9/11 attacks that killed around 3,000 people in Washington and New York.

The number of international troops in Afghanistan has since risen to nearly 70,000 but the unrest has grown too, with some of the bloodiest incidents in recent months.

In one of the deadliest attacks on foreign troops since they deployed here in 2001, nine US soldiers were killed July 13 when about 200 insurgents stormed a base at a remote outpost in the northeast. Another 15 soldiers were wounded.

A week earlier, Kabul was struck by its deadliest suicide attack when a car bomb blew up outside the Indian embassy. Around 60 people were killed including two senior Indian diplomats.


The spike in violence has led Afghanistan to accuse elements in Pakistan, another US ally, of supporting the rebels, further straining an already tense relationship between the Muslim neighbours.

In new violence, a Canadian soldier was killed in a bomb blast in the southern province of Kandahar, the Canadian military said.

Four Afghan police officers were killed in a similar blast elsewhere that was claimed by the Taliban.
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