Violence strains U.S., Afghan relations

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai lashed out at the United States in strikingly acerbic terms Sunday, implying that the American military was stoking violence in collusion with the Taliban to justify a prolonged presence here, and charging that foreign troops were harassing Afghan university students.

The remarks painted an embarrassing picture of discord that marred Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel's first foreign trip as Pentagon chief and plunged the tenuous allies into crisis mode at a time when the United States is struggling to wind down the unpopular war in a dignified manner.

Afghan and American officials provided differing accounts about why a joint news conference scheduled last night that had been expected to be the centerpiece of Hagel's trip was scrapped.

U.S. officials said they scrapped the event in consultation with the Afghan government because of an unspecified security threat. Karzai's spokesman, Aimal Faizi, rejected the notion that the palace would have been a dangerous place to hold a news conference.

At best, the day's event left the impression that after more than a decade of war and billions of U.S. dollars spent, the United States deemed the risk of holding a news conference in the most barricaded quarter of the capital as unreasonably high.

In contrast to Kabul visits by other U.S. defense secretaries, Hagel completed his trip without making upbeat public pronouncements about the state of the U.S. mission.

Later Sunday, Hagel met with Karzai in private. After the meeting, the secretary told reporters he was hopeful the two countries could overcome the latest crisis.