Militant attacks up in Afghan border area--U S says

KABUL, Sep 28 (Reuters) Militant attacks in eastern Afghanistan, along the border with Pakistan, have tripled in some areas, the US military said today, despite a peace agreement on the Pakistani side meant to end the violence.

Insecurity along the border has soured relations between the two crucial U S allies in the war on terrorism.

U S President George W Bush urged the Afghan and Pakistani leaders yesterday to improve cooperation in fighting terrorism as he mediated talks between them in Washington.

Afghanistan is angry about the support a resurgent Taliban can get in Pakistan and is suspicious of a peace agreement struck in Pakistan this month.

The pact is meant to end violence by pro-Taliban militants in Pakistan's North Waziristan border region. It is also meant to choke off cross-border attacks into Afghanistan.

But the number of attacks on the Afghan side of the mountainous border, in the eastern provinces of Paktika and Khost, had risen since the pact was signed, the U.S. military said.

''There has been an increase in activity, certainly along the border region, especially in the southeast areas across from North Waziristan,'' a U S military spokesman, Colonel John Paradis, told a news conference.

Referring to accounts from soldiers on the ground, Paradis said: ''They have seen, in some cases two-fold, in some cases three-fold increases in the number of attacks.'' The greater number of attacks was partly a result of more extensive operations by US-led coalition and Afghan forces, Paradis said.

He did not say if the U S military thought the attacks were being carried out by infiltrators from Pakistan.

Many al Qaeda and Taliban militants fled to semi-autonomous ethnic Pashtun lands on the Pakistani side of the border after U S-led forces ousted the Taliban in late 2001.

Bush, Karzai and the British government have said they do not want to prejudge the North Waziristan pact, struck after many months of fighting between militants and the Pakistan army.

NATO is due to take command of Afghanistan's eastern provinces soon from the U S-led coalition. Coalition troops now in the east will come under NATO command.

NATO took over from the U S-led coalition in the south at the end of July.

Its troops, in particular British and Canadians, have met fierce Taliban opposition.

REUTERS SP HT1532