Obama, Karzai hold video conference

KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Barack Obama discussed the new US policy for Afghanistan during an hour-long video conference call today morning, a spokesman for the presidential palace said.

The video conference came ahead of Obama's planned speech at the US Military Academy West Point, N Y, where he will outline a new U S war plan and dispatch between 30,000 and 35,000 more American troops to Afghanistan. Karzai's office says the two leaders discussed in detail the security, political, military and economic aspects of the strategy.

The call was one of several Obama was making to world leaders, including Asif Ali Zardari, the president of neighboring Pakistan.

Obama's war escalation includes sending more American forces into Afghanistan in a graduated deployment over the next year. They will join the 71,000 US troops already on the ground. Obama's new war strategy also includes renewed focus on training Afghan forces to take over the fight and allow the Americans to leave.

Obama is also expected to explain why he believes the US must continue to fight more than eight years after the war was started following the Sept 11 attacks by al-Qaida terrorists based in Afghanistan.

He will emphasize that Afghan security forces need more time, more schooling and more US combat backup to be up to the job on their own, and he will make tougher demands on the governments of Pakistan as well as Afghanistan.

-PTI