Obama, Afghan President Hamid Karzai have lengthy videoconference to discuss strategy

Obama, Karzai hold videoconference, talk strategy

KABUL — Afghan President Hamid Karzai and President Barack Obama discussed the new U.S. policy for Afghanistan during an hourlong videoconference call Tuesday morning, a spokesman for the presidential palace said.

The videoconference came ahead of Obama’s planned speech Tuesday night at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, New York, 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 said 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 U.S. 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 also is expected to explain why he believes the U.S. 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.

This has been the deadliest year of the conflict for U.S. forces, with nearly 300 killed. Casualties started climbing soon after Obama decided to deploy an additional 21,000 U.S. troops as part of his plan to refocus on the Afghan war.

NATO forces have also posted a higher death toll in 2009 than in any previous year, with more than 500 killed. In the latest casualty, a British service member was killed by a bomb Monday, the international military coalition said in a statement.

Obama will emphasize that Afghan security forces need more time, more schooling and more U.S. 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.

In the capital of Kabul, some Afghans said they were worried that the troop increase was too much like an occupation — a scenario particularly worrisome to Afghans who still remember living through an oppressive Soviet regime.

“Afghans do not like any interference of foreigners into their affairs, especially in military affairs,” said Bershna Nadery, a woman in a black head scarf who works for the Afghan Finance Ministry.

Nadery said she was worried that more troops would make life more dangerous for Afghans.

“When they increase the troops, the Taliban will respond by increasing their attacks on the foreigners. But that will not only be against the foreigners, it will be against Afghan civilians who live in the same area,” Nadery said.

Associated Press writer Deb Riechmann contributed to this report from Kabul.