Pakistan's sharia cease-fire: I knew it wouldn't work, Zardari says

Despite a string of suicide bombings within various ministries in Kabul, he said the Taliban did not constitute a threat to the government, but rather a threat to "security and a peaceful life."

The US and Karzai are currently looking at each other with significant distrust.

The American military effort in Afghanistan has brought increasing claims of civilian casualties. Most recently, villagers in the western province of Farah say that US bombs killed dozens of civilians including women and children this week. The reports have turned many Afghans against Karzai's government and the war that the US military is fighting with its blessing.

"Civilian casualties are undermining the support of the Afghanistan people," Karzai said.

Yet Western officials are similarly exasperated with the Afghan president, according to a report in the Times of London. With presidential elections coming, Karzai chose a former warlord, Mohammed Qasim Fahim, as his running mate. He is also in talks to bring the party of another brutal warlord, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, into the government.

The warlords were responsible for the Afghan Civil War: four years of chronic misrule and violence, which left entire neighborhoods of Kabul in ruins and eventually led to the welcoming of the Taliban.

Karzai said he would like to reconcile with the Taliban who were driven out of the country by fear or intimidation after the US invasion. But the part of the Taliban that is allied with Al Qaeda "must be stopped," he said.

On "FOX News Sunday," General Petraeus said Afghan and international forces had been successful at driving the remnants of Al Qaeda out of Afghanistan. The hub of Al Qaeda's operations is now almost wholly Pakistan, he said.

"There's no question that Al Qaeda's senior leadership has been there and has been in operation for years," Petraeus said.

For this reason, he said he was heartened by Pakistan's new offensive in Swat, which appears to have broader support politically and militarily than offensives of the past: "There is a degree of unanimity that there must be swift and effective action taken against the Taliban in Pakistan."

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