Washington  - Richard Holbrooke, the special US envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, will travel to the two countries as well as India after attending a weekend security conference in Munich, the US State Department said Wednesday.

Holbrooke departs Washington on Wednesday for London before he heads to the annual conference in Munich, which runs Friday to Sunday. He will then head to Pakistan, Afghanistan and India as part of "an orientation trip," State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood said.

"He's not going there to lecture, he's going there to listen," Wood said, but did not provide specific dates for Holbrooke's arrival in South Asia.

President Barack Obama named Holbrooke, a veteran diplomat, as his special envoy to take on the conflict in Afghanistan and along the border with Pakistan, where al-Qaeda and Taliban militants have taken refuge to launch attacks against NATO.

Holbrooke is tasked with improving coordination between the two countries in dealing with the border region while trying to find ways to stabilize Afghanistan. The security environment in Afghanistan has deteriorated in the past two years in part because of a resurgent Taliban.

Obama has identified Afghanistan as the "central front" in the war on terrorism and plans to redeploy some US forces in Iraq to Afghanistan. Holbrooke is also visiting India to explore how the country can play a role in promoting stability in Afghanistan.

Holbrooke is not assigned to address the decades-old territorial dispute between India and Pakistan, whose relations have been strained after the November terrorist attacks in Mumbai. dpa