US Secretary of Defence Mr Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Kabul today for talks with the Afghan government, two months before the country votes in its first democratic presidential election.
During his one-day visit, Mr Rumsfeld will also travel to the eastern city of Jalalabad to see a US-led military reconstruction project.
In Kabul, he is expected to hold talks with US-backed President Hamid Karzai over the war on terror and the presidential election set for October 9th in which Mr Karzai is the frontrunner.
Earlier in the day in Oman, Mr Rumsfeld said Afghanistan's ousted Taliban militia and their al-Qaeda allies would try to sabotage the polls, but he expressed confidence the radical Islamists would not succeed.