Kabul  - Afghan President Hamid Karzai welcomed the new strategy unveiled by US President Barack Obama on Friday and said the chances for success were greater, because the plan has recognized that the war on terrorism was a regional problem.

"The Afghan government welcomes the new US strategy, because it has taken into consideration the Afghan government's ideas and its demand that the terrorism is a regional problem," Karzai said in a statement issued by his office.

The president said the new plan was useful both for his country and the region and that his government "believes that this strategy of the United States will bring Afghanistan and the international community closer to success."

In the new strategy, Obama said he was ordering an additional 4,000 soldiers to Afghanistan to boost the effort to build up Afghan security forces. The new forces would come on top of the 17,000 already enroute to the country this year.

"We have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future," Obama said.

Following their ouster in the US-led invasion in late 2001, Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters crossed the border and built their commanding bases inside the Pakistani tribal areas, from where they sent fighters to attack Afghan and NATO forces.

Karzai has repeatedly in the past asked the international forces in Afghanistan to target the Taliban and al-Qaeda safe-havens inside Pakistan, warning the NATO forces would not succeed in their war if they turned a blind eye to the region.

Obama on Friday admitted that the Taliban and al-Qaeda leaders were hiding in Pakistani tribal areas and called the border region "the most dangerous place in the world" for the American people. (dpa)