Kabul  - US First Lady Laura Bush arrived for one-day-visit in Afghanistan Sunday and was scheduled to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other senior officials, a government official said.

She was also scheduled to visit the central province of Bamian, where two giant Buddha statues are located, said the official, who requested anonymity.

The two statues were destroyed in March 2001 by Taliban militants who deemed them as un-Islamic. Bamian is also the only province in the country that is led by a female governor.

Bush, who is on her third visit since the ouster of Taliban regime in late 2001 by a US military invasion, was scheduled to meet with President Karzai later in the day in Kabul, the source said.

Her visit precedes an international donors' conference to held on Thursday in France, where Afghanistan planned to ask for 50 billion dollars to fund a five-year-plan to bolster it infrastructures.

She is also scheduled to address the conference in Paris. (dpa)