By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
Barack Obama visited with US troops and Afghan officials in this war-weary nation, which is the focal point of his proposed strategy for dealing with threats to the US if elected president.
While officially a part of a congressional delegation on a fact-finding tour expected to take him to Iraq, Obama was traveling Saturday amid the publicity and scrutiny accorded a likely Democratic nominee for president rather than a senator from Illinois. Security was tight and media access to Obama was limited by his campaign, and his itinerary in the war zones was a closely guarded secret.
Obama, dressed in light khaki colored trousers and a checkered shirt with his sleeves rolled up, and others in the delegation received a briefing inside the US base in Jalalabad from the Afghan provincial governor of Nangarhar, Gul Agha Sherzai, a no-nonsense, bullish former warlord.
"Obama promised us that if he becomes a president in the future, he will support and help Afghanistan not only in its security sector but also in reconstruction, development and economic sector," Sherzai told The Associated Press.
The area where the meeting took place is not far from where Osama bin Laden escaped US troops in 2001 after his al-Qaida terrorist group led the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US