KABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates arrived in Kabul Tuesday for talks about the Taliban insurgency with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Violence in Afghanistan has been mounting in recent months, and has reached the same pitch as when the fundamentalist Taliban movement was ousted from power in 2001.
Gates flew to Kabul from Brussels, where he met Monday with NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer to discuss reining in the militants.
Gates also was scheduled to meet with Lt.-Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, and Gen. David Richards, commander of the 33,000-member NATO-led force, the BBC reported.
Eikenberry has been very vocal about Taliban fighters using Pakistan as a safe haven from which to plot and coordinate raids by crossing the porous border.
Gates is unlikely to commit more U.S. troops, as last week, President George Bush ordered more than 20,000 more troops to Iraq to regain control of Baghdad from insurgents, the report said.
