Miliband on surprise visit in Afghanistan

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KABUL: Foreign Secretary David Miliband met President Hamid Karzai in a surprise visit to the Afghan capital Kabul Tuesday, the British embassy said.

Miliband arrived in Afghanistan late Monday, an embassy spokesman said. He was unable to release further details of the secretary's schedule.

Miliband was last in Afghanistan in February when he visited with US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Britain is the second-largest contributor of troops to the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force of nearly 51,000 soldiers that is helping the Afghan government fight a Taliban-led insurgency.

There are about 8,000 British soldiers in ISAF, most of them based in the opium-growing region of Helmand which is also a Taliban stronghold.

A British soldier was killed in an explosion in Helmand on Monday.

The death took to 126 the number of British services personnel killed in Afghanistan since 2001, the year the Taliban were forced from government in a US-led invasion.



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