US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has begun a one-day visit to Afghanistan.
He started the trip today in the northern town of Mazar-i-Sharif and went into talks with commanders of a British military Provincial Reconstruction Team accompanied by U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad.
Later in the day, Mr Rumsfeld, who held talks with NATO allies this week in Brussels on boosting shaky provincial security two years after the US-led intervention, is due to meet President Hamid Karzai and commanders of the 5,700-strong NATO-led peacekeeping force based in Kabul.
Afghan officials said the talks with Mr Karzai would focus on the war on the Taliban and its allies, the government's efforts to rein in provincial warlords and ways to stem Afghanistan's massive narcotics output.
Meeting NATO defence ministers earlier in the week, Rumsfeld discussed ways to plug embarrassing equipment gaps limiting the alliance's ability to expand the NATO peacekeeping force to provide a meaningful presence in the provinces.
Washington and its allies see the provincial teams, consisting of a few dozen soldiers, as a way to boost provincial security, but they have been criticised by aid agencies and others as inadequate to provide protection for elections due next June and essential humanitarian and reconstruction work.