August 04, 2007	Saturday	Rajab 19, 1428

KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai is due to meet his US counterpart George W. Bush at the weekend for talks likely to be overshadowed by the Taliban's capture of 21 South Korean aid workers.

South Korea is pressing the United States to intervene in the dragging crisis in which the Islamic hardliners have already killed two of the 23 mostly young, Christian aid workers captured more than two weeks ago.

A top US diplomat said late on Thursday there was “potential” for military pressure against the Taliban to try to free them.

The kidnapping highlights increasing insecurity in Afghanistan, one of the main battlegrounds of the US-led “war on terror”, nearly six years after the United States led the invasion that toppled the hardline Taliban government.

Karzai, whose departure date is under wraps for security reasons, is due to meet Bush at Camp David — the US presidential retreat in Maryland — on Sunday and Monday, his office said.

“The two presidents will spend time discussing issues in an informal setting,” Karzai's spokesman Humayun Hamidzada said.

These issues included mounting civilian casualties by international troops in operations against Taliban insurgents, he said.—AFP