U.S. President Barack Obama and his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, have agreed that their countries should continue to cooperate to keep pressure on the Taliban, fight terrorism and protect the Afghan people.
A White House statement said the two leaders spoke Friday via video teleconference and discussed a wide variety of issues, including upcoming Afghan parliamentary elections, anti-corruption efforts and civilian casualties.
The White House said U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry and the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, also participated in the video teleconference from the Afghan capital, Kabul.
In violence Saturday, a NATO servicemember died following an insurgent attack in southern Afghanistan.
Elsewhere in southern Afghanistan, two NATO soldiers were killed Friday in clashes with insurgents, while three Afghan civilians were killed and another wounded by insurgents in separate incidents in Kandahar province.
Earlier Friday, clashes between rival ethnic groups in Kabul left one person dead and several others wounded.
Witnesses say the fighting erupted in the Kotasangi area of the capital when a group of Hazara villagers confronted Pashtun nomads in a dispute over land.
NATO also announced the capture of a Taliban sub-commander involved in improvised explosive device attacks.
In Washington, the U.S. State Department updated its travel warning for U.S. citizens traveling to Afghanistan.
The document says the security threat to all U.S. citizens remains critical and that no part of Afghanistan should be considered immune from violence.
