KABUL: German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle held talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai Sunday on a surprise trip to Afghanistan. The visit came ahead of a German parliamentary vote in Berlin this month on extending the country's unpopular mission in war-torn Afghanistan by one year. Westerwelle, arriving in Kabul following a trip to neighboring Pakistan, held talks with Karzai, Afghan Foreign Minister Salmai Rassul and National Security Advisor Rangeen Dadfar Spanta. He told Karzai that Germany “will continue providing support to strengthen the Afghan national security forces,” according to a statement from Karzai's office. It added that Westerwelle said his country “supports President Karzai's peace initiative with the Taliban.” Afghans protest arrest Hundreds gathered in a mosque in northern Afghanistan Sunday, demanding NATO forces release a top cleric arrested in a raid that touched a raw nerve among Afghans who said they were shut out of the operation. Opening another potential trouble spot for the coalition, three civilians, including a child, were killed Saturday in the crossfire as militants battled NATO forces, according to officials in the southern province of Helmand, a Taliban stronghold. Separately, NATO said one of its service members was killed in a bomb blast in southern Afghanistan – the 11th killed so far this year. In the northern province of Kunduz, NATO said its forces, in tandem with their Afghan counterparts, arrested five people early Sunday in connection with a Dec. 19 attack that killed at least eight Afghan security oldiers and police in the area. Provincial authorities said hundreds gathered in the main mosque in the city of Kunduz to protest the arrest of Mullah Nurallah, the apparent target of the raid early Sunday. But irate Afghan authorities denied that local forces were involved.
