A key component is likely to be more troops, but the strategy must go beyond that, experts say.
By Gordon Lubold | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
al troops to turn things around there.

AP KABUL, Afghanistan: As violence in Afghanistan escalates, the US is responding by scrambling to get in more troops. But it's far from clear how the

>p>This weekend Senator Barack Obama visited Afghanistan after calling for an increased troop presence and more equipment there in a New York Times Op-Ed.

A US Marine during a patrol in the town of Garmser in Helmand province of Afghanistan. (AP/Rafiq Maqbool) Since the start of the marathon presidential

AMMAN, Jordan - Senator Barack Obama declared yesterday that there is a "growing consensus" in the United States and Iraq for a timeline to withdraw American combat forces, and that the United States now urgently needs to turn its attention to Afghanistan.
"If we responsibly end the war in Iraq, we can strengthen our military, step up our efforts to finish the fight against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan, and succeed in leaving Iraq to a sovereign government that can take responsibility for its own future," Obama said at his first news conference since touring Afghanistan and Iraq.
knowledged that the top US commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, does not want a timetable for withdrawal.

Barack Obama yesterday conceded that the surge in Iraq has brought "progress." However, the presumptive Democratic nominee has discovered another American losing cause. The situation in Afghanistan, he said in Amman, Jordan, is "deteriorating" and "perilous and urgent."
The junior Senator from Illinois still wants a quick withdrawal from Iraq, despite a contrary view from the military commander there, General David Petraeus. Yet on Afghanistan, Obama turns all militarist. He says he'd send two additional brigades to supplement the 35,000-strong U.S. force. He has previously called for American troops to track down and kill or capture al Qaeda leaders across the border in Pakistan.
out. We have the firepower, they have the time.

By Caren Bohan AMMAN (Reuters) - US Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Tuesday he was committed to a 16-month timetable for a US

He hit the right notes during his swing through Iraq, but his plans for that other war could mean trouble.
By Juan Cole
but wants to withdraw all American soldiers and Marines from Iraq on a short timetable. In contrast to the kid gloves with which he treated the Iraqi government, Obama repeated his threat to hit at al-Qaida in neighboring Pakistan unilaterally, drawing howls of outrage from Islamabad.

By Joseph Morton, Omaha World-Herald, Neb. Jul. 22--WASHINGTON --The United States can build a "new kind of partnership with Iraq" and refocus its foreign

By Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's Senior Political Analyst Barack Obama, the presidential candidate for the Democratic Party, made his war agenda clear before

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama pledged steadfast aid to Afghanistan in talks Sunday with its Western-backed leader and vowed to pursue the war on terror "with vigor" if elected, an Afghan official said.
On the second day of an international tour designed to burnish his foreign policy credentials, Illinois Sen. Obama and a pair of colleagues held two hours of talks with President Hamid Karzai at his palace in the capital.
f urgency and determination.

By Bill Varner and Matthew Benjamin July 20 (Bloomberg) - Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai came away from a meeting today with Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama expecting he would have a ``strong partner'' in the White House no matter who wins the U.S. election, his spokesman said.
Obama and U.S. Senators Chuck Hagel and Jack Reed spent an hour and 45 minutes with Karzai and his top aides in the presidential palace in Kabul, including a lunch of Afghan rice, lamb and chicken, spokesman Humayun Hamidzada told reporters.
very friendly environment'' between the U.S. senators and Karzai that didn't include substantive discussion of Obama's plan to send 7,000

KABUL (AFP) - US Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama arrived in Afghanistan Saturday on an unannounced trip at the start of a major international tour, his campaign said.
Obama's top aide said he would visit US soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, where nearly 70,000 international troops, the bulk of them Americans, are helping the Western-backed government fight the insurgency.
and Britain.

Al-Qaeda may be considering shifting its focus from Iraq to Afghanistan, the top US commander in Iraq has said.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Gen David Petraeus said there was evidence that foreign fighters were being diverted away from Iraq.
there were signs that foreign fighters recruited by al-Qaeda to do battle in Iraq were being diverted to the largely ungoverned areas on the Afghan-Pakistan border.