Sen. Clinton's delegation meets with Afghan leader, top U.S. general

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton ate breakfast with soldiers from New York and Indiana at the main U.S. base in Afghanistan on Sunday before meeting with the top American general in Afghanistan and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, officials said.

Clinton, a Democrat from New York who is considering running for president, came from Iraq with Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., and Rep. John McHugh, R-N.Y. All three are members of armed services committees.

Their meetings in Kabul were closed, and Clinton and her colleagues did not talk with journalists.

On Friday, Clinton said she was hearing "increasingly troubling reports out of Afghanistan" and would be searching for "accurate information about the true state of affairs" militarily and politically on her trip.

The Taliban last year launched a record number of attacks, and some 4,000 people, most of them militants, died in insurgency-related violence, according to a tally by The Associated Press based on reports from Afghan, NATO and coalition officials. It was Afghanistan's bloodiest year since the Taliban was ousted by a U.S.-led coalition in late 2001.

Some 23,000 U.S. soldiers are in Afghanistan, about half under NATO command and half under control of the U.S.-led coalition. Clinton has said she wants to see more troops sent to Afghanistan, without saying how many.

Gen. Karl Eikenberry, the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, gave Clinton and her colleagues an update on the security situation, including the pace of reconstruction and the progress of Afghan army and police training, said Col. Tom Collins, a U.S. military spokesman.

Collins said all the meetings were private and he didn't have any information about whether troop strength was discussed.

The delegation's trip to Kabul came a day after a visit to Iraq, where Clinton expressed doubt that Iraq's government would follow through with its promises to secure Baghdad as she met with top Iraqi officials and American commanders there.

After leaving Kabul, Clinton went to Lahore, Pakistan, where an official said she met with the Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who is a key ally in the U.S. war against terrorist groups.

No details of the meeting were available, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to reporters. No government spokesman was immediately available.

In Afghan violence, a suicide bomber blew himself up Sunday near a convoy of foreign construction workers and Afghan soldiers in southern Afghanistan, wounding one civilian, said Mohammmad Asif, a police official.

Asif said the foreigners and Afghan troops were in their vehicles south of Qalat, capital of Zabul province, near the site where the workers are putting up a building for Afghan security forces. He could not give the workers' nationality or the name of their company.

On Saturday, British marines staged a predawn attack on a mud-brick compound atop a barren hill where insurgents were thought hiding, setting off a battle that killed 16 suspected militants and one marine in the southern province of Helmand.

The marines were supported by Dutch and British attack helicopters that fired missiles into the compound near the village of Khak-e-Hajannam. U.S. warplanes dropped 500-pound bombs.