A high-level delegation from the United Nations Security Council arrived in Afghanistan on Saturday to review efforts to establish stability after the bloodiest period of growing Taliban-led violence.
The delegation included UN ambassadors from Argentina, Britain, Denmark, France, Greece, Japan, Qatar, Russia, Slovakia and the United States, the UN said in a statement.
The group was due to meet President Hamid Karzai and other government officials and UN agencies during its four-day visit.
It would also travel to the south of Afghanistan to "demonstrate solidarity with local Afghan communities most affected by recent fighting between anti-government elements and military forces," according to the statement.
Southern Afghanistan has seen the most of this year's spike in Taliban violence, which NATO commanders deployed in Afghanistan have admitted took them by surprise and showed new sophistication and outside influence.
Taliban attacks and military operations against the militants have killed 1,000 civilians this year, Human Rights Watch said Friday in a statement that urged the UN mission to push for compensation for victims of the violence.
While Afghanistan "has emerged from being a fractured, lawless state to a democratic Islamic nation, major challenges still lay ahead if we are to build on the progress of the last five years," the Japanese ambassador to the UN, Kenzo Oshima, said on arriving at Kabul airport.
"We all recognise that there is much more that needs to be achieved but I am convinced that with the continuing commitment of the Afghan people we can and will succeed in bringing peace, stability and progress to Afghanistan," said Oshima, the head of the delegation.
New York-based Human Rights Watch said the team must immediately address a "deteriorating rights situation" that included increasing civilian casualties in the unrest, corruption and violence and discrimination against women.
Southern Afghanistan had "degenerated into open warfare" since the extremist Taliban launched an insurgency after being toppled from government in 2001, the watchdog said in an open letter to the team.
"This fighting has halted much needed development activity and has reversed some of the modest gains made in the Taliban's absence, such as returning children, particularly girls, to school," it said.