Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak held talks at the Pentagon to look at future relations, despite recent tensions between the two governments over civilian deaths in the NATO-led campaign against the Taliban.

"We do strongly believe that for Afghanistan to be able to survive in that very volatile region, it will need your help beyond 2014," Wardak said at the start of a meeting with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Wardak saluted the nearly 1,500 US troops who have died in America's longest war, which was launched in 2001 to root out Al-Qaeda extremists responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States.

"We should be extremely grateful for all the sacrifices which your sons and daughters have given," Wardak said.

Gates said that such meetings on future security relations would take place twice annually between the two countries, with one session each year involving the US defense secretary.

He hoped that the forum would lay "an enduring foundation for our partnership well beyond 2014."

The meetings should "demonstrate to others in the region and to our own people, in concrete terms, that together we are putting Afghanistan on a path towards stability and security," Gates said.

Opinion polls show dwindling US public support for the war in Afghanistan, with many Americans questioning the continued human and financial toll nearly a decade after troops were first deployed.

Obama has poured more troops into Afghanistan but said that he will start pulling them out in July this year. However, the administration has recently shifted focus and emphasized 2014 as the date by which US troops will leave.

Colonel Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said that the US military expected to play a role in Afghanistan even beyond that year.

"We have said that there will likely be some type of support past 2014 involving US troops of some nature," Lapan told reporters.

Lawmakers from the rival Republican Party have criticized Obama for setting a time-frame for withdrawal, saying it would embolden guerrillas to wait out the United States and also encourage Pakistan to hedge its bets by keeping ties with the Afghan Taliban.

Gates, a Republican in Obama's cabinet, acknowledged in an interview published Wednesday that he was initially skeptical of setting a deadline but came to believe it would influence Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"I couldn't think of another way to grab Karzai by the lapels and say: 'You have to take ownership of this. This is your war,'" Gates said in The Weekly Standard, a conservative political magazine.

Gates also said that the United States soon "could do some judo" on the Taliban, who would be surprised if they had anticipated a significant troop drawdown in July.

The United States has had tense relations with Karzai, with officials accusing him of corruption, personal instability and a dependence on US troops that has prevented Afghanistan from developing its own forces.

Tensions have also mounted over civilian casualties. Karzai on Sunday voiced anger at what he said were the deaths of more than 50 civilians in airstrikes in Kunar province. NATO said it would probe the allegations.

The deaths of Western troops and Afghan civilians have also fueled opposition to the military campaign in the United States, where polls show more than half of the public believe the war is going in the wrong direction.

Representative Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, a staunch war critic from Obama's Democratic Party, said that the civilian deaths from the airstrikes would only fuel the insurgency.

"No innocent civilian deaths are acceptable, especially to the families of those killed. We must end this war and bring our troops home," Kucinich said.

earlier related report
NATO air strike kills Afghan family of six: officials
Jalalabad, Afghanistan (AFP) Feb 21, 2011 - Afghan officials Monday accused NATO forces of killing a family of six in an air strike, a day after President Hamid Karzai said 50 innocent people had died in aerial attacks nearby.

The incidents highlight again the sensitive issue of civilian casualties in the war against the Taliban, which is now in its tenth and arguably most critical year amid official warnings of more hard fighting ahead.

A limited withdrawal of foreign forces is expected to start from more stable provinces of Afghanistan from July ahead of a full transition to Afghan control by 2014.

In the latest civilian deaths, a couple and their four children were killed overnight when a misdirected NATO missile hit their mud-built home in Nangarhar province, which borders Pakistan in the east, local officials told AFP.

"The air strike was originally targeting three insurgents who were planting mines on a road. One missile mistakenly hit a house and killed six civilians, all members of the same family," said provincial spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai.

Mohammad Hassen, governor of Khogyani district, confirmed the incident took place on his patch.

A local man, Bilal Karim, told AFP he was a cousin of the man of the family who died, named Patang. He put the death toll higher, at nine, and said the family had been visiting his wife's relatives when the attack happened.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said it was investigating the incident, which it accepted had "resulted in Afghan civilians being accidentally killed and wounded".

It said its troops had been targeting the three insurgents planting a bomb but local people later reported that "the roof of their compound collapsed during the engagement, resulting in the casualties."

"We are investigating this tragic incident," said ISAF's Colonel Patrick Hynes. "We will meet with local leaders in the area and ensure they understand what happened."

The strike came the day after Karzai accused NATO troops of killing some 50 civilians in five days of air strikes in Kunar province, which borders Nangarhar province.

Saying he "strongly condemns" the deaths, Karzai pledged to send investigators to the remote district.

ISAF spokesman Brigadier General Josef Blotz Monday stressed that the coalition force was looking into what happened.

But he added that troops had "verified that no apparent civilians or structures were present before firing on targets in a disciplined manner".

"One hundred percent of every helicopter mission is video recorded and the video clearly shows armed individuals reacting to the contact and to our attacks," he told a press conference. "That is what we have got so far."

Eastern Afghanistan is seen as key in the fight against the Taliban because it borders Pakistan's border regions, where the Islamist militants are thought to have rear bases.

A human rights watchdog said earlier this month that 2010 was the deadliest year for ordinary Afghans since the US-led invasion of 2001, with more than 2,400 civilians killed.

Taliban and other insurgents were responsible for more than 60 percent of the dead, the report by the Afghanistan Rights Monitor said, blaming the US-led force for 21 percent of casualties.

Nangarhar province, where the latest incident took place, was also the scene on Saturday of the deadliest attack in Afghanistan since June last year.

A Taliban assault on a bank in Nangarhar's provincial capital Jalalabad, apparently targeting policemen collecting their salaries, left 38 people dead and wounded more than 70 others.

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