* Goal is to check on transition efforts
* Biden's first trip to Afghanistan as vice president
* Goals for U.S. withdrawals still in place
(Recasts, adds detail throughout)
By Patricia Zengerle
KABUL, Jan 10 (Reuters) - U.S. Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Afghanistan on Monday on a surprise trip to assess a shift in security operations to Afghan forces before a gradual U.S. troop withdrawal starts in July.
Biden, whose trip was not announced in advance for security reasons, is due to meet Afghan President Hamid Karzai for talks on Tuesday.
Violence is at its worst in the near-decade-long war against a Taliban-led insurgency, with the insurgency spreading from traditional strongholds in the south and east into once-peaceful areas in the north and west.
"The visit comes at an important time. This is a pivot point in our policy," a senior administration official travelling with Biden told reports on board Air Force Two.
"We moved from a surge last year to the transition to Afghan lead that we'll be starting this year and concluding in 2014. So what he (Biden) wants to do in the first instance is to assess the progress we're making toward transition."
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NATO leaders agreed in November to Karzai's request to end combat operations and hand security responsibilities to Afghan forces by the end of 2014.
With the U.S. public growing weary of a conflict that costs taxpayers some ${esc.dollar}113 billion a year, U.S. President Barack Obama has promised to begin withdrawing U.S. troops from July.
Critics, including some Republicans in the U.S. Congress, say the Democratic president's target is too ambitious, stressing that setting a deadline only emboldens the insurgents.
Upon landing at Kabul's airport, Biden flew in a helicopter to the U.S. Embassy for 1 hour and 45 minutes of talks with General David Petraeus, chief of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and U.S. Ambassador Karl Eikenberry.
ASSESSING TROOPS AND TRAINING
On Tuesday, Biden was to meet U.S. troops and civilians, and tour an Afghan National Army Training Center. He is due to have lunch with Karzai and other officials and meet Karzai privately.
The trip is Biden's first time in Afghanistan as vice president. He was last in the country in January 2009.
Obama visited Afghanistan last month. He was scheduled to talk with Karzai, but the face-to-face meeting was cancelled because bad weather prevented their travel.
A review by Obama last month found U.S. and NATO forces were making headway against the Taliban and al Qaeda, but serious challenges remained. It said the Taliban's momentum had been arrested in much of Afghanistan and reversed in some areas.
The review also said the United States was on track to begin the gradual withdrawal of its troops -- numbering about 97,000 in a total foreign force of some 150,000 -- in July. The pace and scope of the drawdown remains unclear.
"We're not here to govern Afghanistan, we're not here to nation build, we're not here to secure Afghanistan for the Afghans. Those are responsibilities that belong to the Afghans," the senior administration official said.
"The only purpose of our mission now is to help put the Afghans in a position where they can fully assume the responsibilities of governing the country and securing the country," the official said.
He would not discuss what message Biden might intend to deliver to Karzai, or whether corruption charges were on the vice president's agenda.
The United States is temporarily sending 1,400 more Marines to Afghanistan in an effort to preserve fragile security gains, but overall U.S. troop levels will not surpass previously announced limits, the Pentagon said last week.
(Editing by Maria Golovnina)
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