US national security adviser James Jones has arrived in Afghanistan, a US official said Tuesday, on a visit aimed at monitoring implementation of a new US strategy against the Taliban.
Jones was due later Tuesday to meet President Hamid Karzai and some of the other candidates in the August 20 presidential elections, the official said without being able to give details of the trip.
Karzai”s office confirmed the meeting was due later Tuesday.
Jones is President Barack Obama”s top security advisor and officials in Washington said Monday he would also visit Pakistan and India.
In Afghanistan he would meet local officials, US diplomats, military personnel and representatives of foreign nations battling alongside US troops in the Afghan war coalition, they said.
“At the request of the president, national security advisor Jim Jones is travelling to Afghanistan and Pakistan to follow up on the implementation of our new, comprehensive strategy,” said National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer.
Obama put Pakistan at the centre of the US fight against Al-Qaeda when he unveiled a new war strategy in March to commit thousands more troops and billions of dollars to the Afghan war.
