General David McKiernan, the commander of the International Security Assistance Force, also said the coalition needs more troops for what he said is an increasingly "tough fight" in eastern and southern Afghanistan.

"And until we get to what I call a tipping point where the lead for security can be in the hands of the Afghan Army and the Afghan Police, there is going to be a need for the international community to provide military capabilities," he told reporters.

McKiernan has asked for four more US combat brigades, support forces, helicopters and reconnaissance, intelligence and surveillance capabilities.

McKiernan said that any reconciliation efforts should be led by the Afghan government, but that the military would support it.

Asked whether dealing with the man who harbored Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was beyond the pale, McKiernan said, "I think that's a political decision that will ultimately be made by political leadership."

Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday that he has asked Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to arrange talks with the Taliban so that Omar and other militia leaders could return home in peace.

"Ultimately, the solution in Afghanistan is going to be a political solution not a military solution," said McKiernan, who spoke to reporters at a Pentagon news conference.

"We're not going to run out of bad guys there that want to do bad things in Afghanistan," he said.

"So the idea that the government of Afghanistan will take on the idea of reconciliation, I think, is (an) approach and we'll be there to provide support within our mandate," he said.

His visit to Washington comes as the administration is conducting a wide-ranging strategy review prompted by rising insurgent violence in Afghanistan fueled from sanctuaries in neighboring Pakistan.

The Afghan national army is supposed to double in size to 134,000 troops in four years, but McKiernan said he did not know how long it would take to reach a point where international forces can shrink in size.

Drawing on the US experience in Iraq, however, McKiernan suggested that a rebalancing of power between the central government and the tribes could help provide security at a local level.

"And it seems to me that with the lead of the government of Afghanistan engaging those tribes and connecting them to governance, whether it's at the provincial level or the district level, seems to be a smart thing," he said.

He acknowledged that "that has to be done correctly or you get back into the problems of armed militias, of support to warlords, or corrupt practices."

But he said it should be left to the government in part because the tribal structure in Afghanistan is too complex and traumatized by 30 years of war for foreign military commanders to navigate.

McKiernan also emphasized the importance of a strategy that encompasses neighboring Pakistan.

He said he was encouraged by the Pakistani government's use of tribes there to go after militants in the tribal areas and its recent military operations in Bajaur, an insurgent stronghold.

But it was not yet clear whether it has an impact on the insurgency in Afghanistan, he said.

McKiernan said he would pursue a proposal raised last week by Afghanistan's defense minister for a combined Afghan-Pakistani-ISAF force able to operate on both sides the Afghan-Pakistani border.

He said it was a "very powerful idea" that the Pakistani might accept if it were "done the right way."

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