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[Black Widow]

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- Sen. Barack Obama arrived in Afghanistan on Saturday, met with American forces and, according to a U.S. official, is expected to meet Sunday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee was visiting the southern Asian nation before he embarks on a tour of the Middle East and Europe, a trip aimed at boosting his foreign policy credentials.

The trip, which comes four months ahead of the presidential election, marks Obama's first visit to Afghanistan.

On Saturday, the senator from Illinois traveled to eastern Afghanistan to visit Americans forces under NATO's Regional Command East. Obama is accompanied by Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Nebraska and Sen. Jack Reed, D-Rhode Island.

The senators met service members at Jalalabad airfield in Nangarhar province. The governor of Nangarhar province, Gul Agha Shirzai -- formerly the governor of Kandahar province -- also met the senators at the air base. Shirzai and Obama embraced briefly at the end of the meeting. Video Watch Obama's visit to Jalalabad »

Upon arrival at Bagram Air Base, the senators were briefed by Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, commanding general of the Regional Command East.

Ahead of the trip to Afghanistan, the senators stopped in Kuwait to visit U.S. troops, said Obama campaign spokesman Robert Gibbs. They left Washington on Thursday.

In Kuwait, the senators visited Camp Arifjan for about two hours to meet with U.S. Army Central leadership, take a brief tour of the base and talk with soldiers, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Bill Nutter said.

They met with about 1,000 military members at a gymnasium, and Obama played basketball with some soldiers before conducting a meet-and-greet there which included photo opportunities, Nutter said.

Following the events at the the gymnasium, they met with Lt. Gen. Jim Lovelace, the U.S. Army Central Commander, and senior leadership who gave them an overview of the command, Nutter said.

Obama spoke briefly to a pool reporter about his trip just before leaving Washington.

"I'm looking forward to seeing what the situation on the ground is," Obama said. "I want to, obviously, talk to the commanders and get a sense, both in Afghanistan and in Baghdad of, you know, what the most, their biggest concerns are. And I want to thank our troops for the heroic work that they've been doing."

Asked if he would have tough talk for the leaders of Afghanistan and Iraq, Obama said he was "more interested in listening than doing a lot of talking."

"I think it is very important to recognize that I'm going over there as a U.S. senator. We have one president at a time, so it's the president's job to deliver those messages," Obama said. Video Watch Obama's foreign policy adviser discuss overseas trip »

The fight in Afghanistan has become a more pressing issue on the political radar. Three times as many coalition soldiers and other military personnel have died this month in Afghanistan, compared with Iraq. July's death toll for coalition troops in Afghanistan reached 22 Saturday, after the Friday death of a Canadian soldier was announced.

The fight in Afghanistan has become a more pressing issue on the political radar. Three times as many coalition soldiers and other military personnel have died in July in Afghanistan than in Iraq.

On Sunday, nine U.S. soldiers were killed in a fight with about 200 Taliban militants in eastern Afghanistan. It was the deadliest attack on U.S. troops in Afghanistan in three years.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday that U.S. officials are looking for ways to send more troops to Afghanistan, amid the resurgence of violence nearly seven years after the ousting of the Taliban government.

Gates said the hope is to send additional forces "sooner rather than later."

He said the Pentagon is "working very hard to see if there are opportunities to send additional forces sooner rather than later." That likely means further reductions in troop levels in Iraq later this year to free up forces for Afghanistan.

Shortly after Obama laid out his foreign policy vision in Washington on Tuesday, presumptive Republican nominee John McCain criticized his proposals as naive and premature. McCain visited Iraq in March.

"I note that he is speaking today about his plans for Iraq and Afghanistan before he has even left, before he has talked to Gen. [David] Petraeus, before he has seen the progress in Iraq and before he has set foot in Afghanistan for the first time," McCain said.

"In my experience, fact-finding missions usually work best the other way around: First, you assess the facts on the ground; then you present a new strategy."

Obama on Tuesday called the war in Iraq a "dangerous distraction" from the battle in Afghanistan, and said if he is elected one one of his top goals will be to finish the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda, which their regime harbored in Afghanistan.

"As should have been apparent to President Bush and Sen. McCain, the central front in the war on terror is not Iraq, and it never was," Obama said. He said part of his new strategy will be "taking the fight to al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan."
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Obama said that on his first day in office he would give the military a new mission: ending the war in Iraq.

Obama will travel to Jordan on Tuesday, then visit Israel, Germany, France and England.


CNN

[JohnCenaFan28]

Thanks for the news.