U.S. officials: Staying put in Afghanistan

WASHINGTON -- The top U.S. diplomat in Kabul and a campaign adviser to President Barack Obama said yesterday the United States isn't rethinking its commitment to Afghanistan after violent protests left more than two dozen people dead.

U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Robert Gibbs, Obama's former press secretary, told CNN's "State of the Union" that they believe Afghan President Hamid Karzai's fragile government could collapse and the Taliban would regain power if the United States were to walk away.

"This is not the time to decide that we're done here," said Crocker, who served in the Bush administration as ambassador to Iraq. "If we decide we're tired of it, al-Qaida and the Taliban certainly aren't."

Added Gibbs: "What the president's trying to do now is get us to a point where we can hand off the security of Afghanistan to the Afghans and that we can bring our troops home."

Violence continued over the burning of Qurans at Bagram Air Base. Seven U.S. soldiers who were training local Afghan police were wounded yesterday when an insurgent threw a grenade outside a U.S. base in Kunduz province, McClatchy Newspapers reported. A gun battle killed two Afghans Sunday.

Early Monday, nine people, including six civilians, were killed in a suicide car bombing at the entrance of Jalalabad airport, which serves civilian and international military aircraft. A Taliban spokesman said his group claimed responsibility for the airport attack as revenge for the Quran burning.

As a manhunt was under way for the main suspect in Saturday's killing of U.S. military advisers, the Taliban said the shooter was a sympathizer and that someone helped him get into the compound to kill the Americans in retaliation for the Quran burning.

Obama apologized last week to Karzai for what U.S. officials said was an inadvertent burning of religious materials, including Qurans. Sunday, Karzai renewed his calls for calm.