Kabul: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and British Foreign Secretary David Miliband arrived in Afghanistan on an unannounced visit on Thursday, carrying a joint message of support and prodding to Afghan officials as the US continued a drive to recruit more NATO troops.

Rice and Miliband flew to the Afghan capital from London together.

They were seeing Afghan President Hamid Karzai and other officials amid a welter of outside assessments that progress in the six-year war is stalling.