US to Hamid Karzai: New general won't alter Afghan plan

America's top military officer assured president Hamid Karzai that newly chosen NATO commander Gen David Petraeus would pursue the policies of his ousted predecessor, whom the Afghan leader warmly praised for reducing civilian casualties.

On the battlefield, five international service members died yesterday, NATO said. Two, including at least one American, were killed in two separate roadside bombings in southern Afghanistan.

Two others, including one American, were killed in roadside bomb attacks in the east. That brought to 89 the number of international troops killed so far in June -- already the deadliest month of the nearly nine-year-old war. The figure includes at least 52 Americans.

Karzai's emphasis on preventing civilian deaths and injuries could make it difficult for NATO to relax rules of fighting that some US troops say give the battlefield advantage to the Taliban.     

For now, however, no changes have been proposed, said a spokesperson  for visiting Adm Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint
Chiefs of Staff.

During a 45-minute meeting with the Afghan leader, Mullen explained the events that surrounded president Barack Obama's
decision to dismiss Gen Stanley McChrystal, the commander of both US and NATO forces. McChrystal resigned after he and his
aides were quoted in Rolling Stone magazine making disparaging remarks about top Obama administration officials guiding the
civilian mission in the war.

Mullen, who spent just a half-day in Kabul, also met with US Embassy officials and had a video teleconference with regional commanders in the field. To both sides, Mullen stressed the importance of a good "lash up" between often strained civilian and military efforts to beat back a resurgent Taliban and extend the Karzai government's control beyond Kabul.

"He stressed to president Karzai that absolutely nothing will change about our commitment to the struggle there, to the strategy," said Capt John Kirby, a spokesperson for Mullen.

Mullen then flew to neighbouring Pakistan, where he repeated the message to president Asif Ali Zardari and Chief of Army Staff Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.