Talks today between US President George W Bush and Afghan President Hamid Karzai will focus on worsening violence in Afghanistan and the threat from militant hideouts across the border in Pakistan.
Mr Bush's two-day meeting with Karzai at the Camp David retreat in the Maryland mountains comes as the US president has found himself on the defensive over the troubled effort to rebuild Afghanistan and the failure to find al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Mr Bush's critics contend those efforts have been hampered by a shifting of resources to the Iraq war.
With the six-year anniversary of the September 11, 2001, attacks approaching, Mr Bush is eager to assure Karzai, and the American public, he is committed to shoring up Afghanistan and combating the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
But Karzai, who arrived at Camp David yesterday, brought little encouraging news about the hunt for bin Laden, telling CNN's "Late Edition" the United States and its allies were no closer than they were a few years ago to tracking down the elusive mastermind of the September 11 attacks.
"We are not closer, we are not further away from it. We are where we were a few years ago," Karzai said.
Bin Laden is believed by US intelligence officials to be hiding in the rugged tribal region of Pakistan, an area near the border of Afghanistan that has been a source of concern to Karzai because it is seen as a hotbed of Taliban activity.