[Tolo News] US Defence Chief Leon Panetta...immediate past Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, now Secretary of Defense. Panetta served as President Bill Clinton's White House Chief of Staff from 1994 to 1997 and was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1977 to 1993....
has met with Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid
Maybe I'll join the TalibanKarzai
... A former Baltimore restaurateur, now 12th and current President of Afghanistan, displacing the legitimate president Rabbani in December 2004. He was installed as the dominant political figure after the removal of the Taliban regime in late 2001 in a vain attempt to put a
Pashtunface on the successor state to the Taliban. After the 2004 presidential election, he was declared president regardless of what the actual vote count was. He won a second, even more dubious, five-year-term after the 2009 presidential election. His grip on reality has been slipping steadily since around 2007, probably from heavy drug use...
in Kabul on Saturday to discuss security transition as well as training and equipment of Afghan forces.
This is Mr Panetta's first visit to Afghanistan since he took office as US Defence Secretary.
During the meeting between the Afghanistan's Caped President Hamid Karzai and US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, a number of issues including security transition and training and equipment of the Afghan forces were discussed, as statement by President Karzai's office said on Sunday.
Joint fight against terrorism and long-term strategic partnership between Afghanistan and the United States were the other key issued discussed, the statement said.
US Defence Chief has predicted that "strategically" defeating al-Qaeda is within reach.
He made the statement on the second day of his two-day visit in Afghanistan.
Mr Panetta is looking at how to withdraw the 33,000 forces that President Barack
B.O.Obama ordered to be pulled out by September 2012 without losing recent gains against the Taliban, Rooters writes.
He has said a successful security handover depends on the capability of Afghan cops.
Mr Panetta has said he has told President Karzai during a meeting last night that the United States will continue its assistance to Afghanistan to develop the forces and prevent backsliding.
"Our goal here is to ensure Afghanistan is stable in the future and can secure, defend and govern itself so that it can never again become a safe haven for al-Qaeda or its turban allies," Panetta has said.