By Caren Bohan BAGRAM AIRBASE, Afghanistan, Feb 27 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, in Afghanistan for talks with President Karzai who faces a Taliban spring offensive, breakfasted with troops at the main U.S. base north of Kabul on Tuesday. Cheney, fresh from talks with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, was to have met Karzai on Monday but was snowed in at Bagram. His aides said the talks would be rescheduled, and an Afghan official said they would happen Tuesday. Cheney's secrecy-shrouded visit comes as the United States warns al Qaeda is resurging on Pakistani soil. In Islamabad, he pressed Musharraf to do more about Taliban and other militants using its territory for shelter and training. Citing U.S. officials, ABC News reported CIA deputy director Stephen Kappes also showed Musharraf "compelling" CIA evidence of al Qaeda's resurgence on Pakistani soil. The CIA evidence was said to include surveillance satellite photos pinpointing the locations of several new al Qaeda camps in the Pakistani border province of Waziristan, ABC reported. With elections due in Pakistan this year, and U.S. pressure building on neighbouring Iran over its nuclear programme, analysts say Washington will be careful not to say anything publicly that could hurt Musharraf domestically. Pakistan, which has lost more than 700 soldiers in battles against rebels and says it has captured hundreds of Taliban and al Qaeda militants, says it is doing as much as it can. Musharraf says Taliban fighters do operate from Pakistan, but their leaders are in Afghanistan. The Afghan government, its foreign allies and the insurgents all warn of a bloody spring offensive as the snows melt within weeks, after 4,000 people were killed in fighting last year in the bloodiest period since the Taliban were ousted in 2001. Each promises to be the one to take the offensive. The United States has about 27,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, where it says the defeat of the Taliban is vital for its own security. NATO and U.S. commanders and officials say the lawless and porous Afghan-Pakistan border, which splits tribes and which President George W. Bush described this month as "wilder than the wild west" is a major problem. Afghan officials and some foreign commanders say the slow pace of the delivery of promised aid and reconstruction had fuelled support for the rebels. Afghan ministers have complained much of the aid that is delivered by the United States and its allies goes back overseas through highly paid contractors and aid groups.
