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With world attention focused on Iraq, the head of the U.S. Central Command, Gen. Tommy Franks, on Friday showed American troops in Afghanistan that they haven't been forgotten.

"There isn't a wit of difference between these youngsters as they stand here in Bagram or if they stand in Iraq," Franks told reporters. "It's part of the global war on terrorism. It is important to my nation and it will remain important to my nation."

Franks visited at the U.S. military headquarters at Bagram Air Base and spoke to hundreds of coalition soldiers engaged in hunting down al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives who continue to target international forces in Afghanistan.

Franks then was to travel to Kabul to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and the U.S ambassador to Afghanistan. He was expected to return to Doha, Qatar, later Friday.

Two U.S. soldiers were killed in an ambush last week and six U.S. servicemen died in a helicopter crash last month.

Despite the challenges facing the 11,500 coalition personnel in Afghanistan, many of 8,500 U.S. soldiers admit they feel like they're on the sidelines watching news from Iraq on television.

It is Franks' first visit to Afghanistan this year, after leading a successful three-week charge into Baghdad.

The troops in Afghanistan are tackling challenges similar to what a postwar force in Iraq may face finding residual enemy forces and delivering humanitarian aid.

Troops on search-and-destroy missions regularly fan out in the mountains and villages while medical helicopters ferry wounded or ailing Afghan civilians. On Wednesday, a misdirected U.S. bomb killed 11 Afghan civilians on the eastern edges of the country, near the border with Pakistan.

Franks denied that militants had stepped up attacks against coalition forces in the past few weeks. He said the number of attacks has remained the same in the past year, and noted that attacks normally increase in the spring when it's easier for militants to travel.

Some Afghan militant groups had vowed to step up attacks against the coalition once war broke out in Iraq, hoping to energize anti-U.S. sentiment and portray Washington's campaign against Muslim-dominated Iraq as a war on Islam.

photo credit and caption:

Gen. Tommy Franks, center, head of the U.S. Central Command, meets U.S. Army personnel at the army base in Bagram, Afghanistan, Friday, April 11, 2003. With world attention focused on the war in Iraq, Gen. Franks showed American troops in Afghanistan Friday that they haven't been forgotten. (AP Photo/Gurinder Osan)

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