KABUL, Nov 10: A senior US official met Afghan leaders during a day's visit to Kabul on Tuesday, expressing dismay over instability In the war-ravaged country, an Afghan minister said, reports Reuter.

Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Robin Raphel was the most senior American envoy to visit Afghanistan since before the Soviet invasion 14 yearsago.

‘Ms Raphel was disappointed that stability could not be maintained in Afghanistan." Afghan Foreign Minister Hldayat Amin Arsala told reporters after the US envoy met President Burhanuddfn Rabbani. Prime Minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and former Defence Minister Ahmad Shah Masood.

He said Raphel told the Afghans that Washington had to channel aid elsewhere because of the security situation tn Afghanistan, which has seen frequent factional fighting even after the western-backed Mujahideen guerillas took power early last year from a collapsed Soviet-backed govern ment.

Raphel. who arrived from Pakistan and returned there after the meetings, was not available for comment on her talks.

However. Arsala quoted her as telling the Afghans that the Clinton administration would

be willing to reopen its embassy in Kabul and resume normal relations with Afghanistan subject to an improvement in the security situation.

As she met the Afghan leaders in the capital, forces of Hekmatyar and those of Rabbani and Masood continued their week-old fighting in Tagab valley some 60 km (37 miles) northeast of Kabul.

Forces of Hekmatyar’s Hezb-l-lslaml Party seized two foreign reporters In the area on Monday. But a Hezb spokesman said on Tuesday the reporters — New Zealander Terence White of the Age nee France Presse and Johan Jennings, a US national working for the Associated Press, would be released,

Raphel also expressed concern about the large-scale production of narcotic drugs in Afghanistan and alleged backing to extremists by some Mujahideen groups, Afghan source said

"The government assured her it would make every effort to control the cultivation of poppies. but that economic alternatives were difficult to intro-ducp for farmers In a poor country,' Arsala said.

The Afghan government ap-pealed for help, and It gained the impression the US would help where It could,' he said.