The remarks by US intelligence chief John Negroponte and others "prove Afghanistan's position in regards (to) the fight on terrorism," a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai told a media briefing.

"We are glad that the position of the international community, in particular the United States, on the war on terror becomes more clear every passing day," Karim Rahimi said.

The United States launched the "war on terror" with the operation that drove the Taliban out of government in late 2001 for sheltering the Al-Qaeda network behind the September 11 attacks that year.

Afghanistan has become a key battlefield for the war, with more than 40,000 foreign troops here fighting militants. But it has long said the insurgency must be cut off at its roots, which it alleges are in Pakistan.

Rahimi said comments by Negroponte and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who has said similar things, were bringing this goal closer.

"The president of Afghanistan has constantly emphasised over the past several years the need for targeting the roots of terrorism. We are getting closer to this goal, I think," Rahimi said.

Once "the roots of terrorists are dried up, there'll be no need to fight them elsewhere," he said.

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates was in Afghanistan Tuesday to meet with Karzai and top military officials to determine the best way to tackle the resurgent Taliban.

As Gates started his meetings in the Afghan capital, Pakistan announced its helicopter gunships had destroyed three suspected Al-Qaeda hideouts early Tuesday in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, killing up to 30 militants.

Afghanistan suffered its most violent year in 2006 as the Taliban made a bloody comeback, attacking Western military and Afghan targets almost every day.

The attacks, which included nearly 140 Iraq-style suicide bombings, killed 4,000 people, most of them rebel fighters.

Karzai has bitterly accused elements in the government of Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf of playing a part in the Taliban's efforts and, relations between the two governments have been strained by the upsurge in attacks.